Liberals lose longtime grip
The NDP’s Suze Morrison destroyed the Liberals’ long- held grip in Toronto Centre Thursday.
Morrison became the first NDP candidate to win the downtown riding, which has historically supported Liberals. Morrison was comfortably ahead of Liberal David Morris, who ww ran second and Progres- sive Conservative’s Meredith Cartwright ( a former LiberalturnedPC) from the earliest polls returns.
“I think I’m still in shock,” said Morrison, 30, of her upset victory. “This riding was one of the safest Liberal strongholds in the province and I don’t think anyone aa thought we would take it, and we did.”
Former cabinet minister Glen Murray anchored the Liberals in Toronto Centre when he won the riding in 2011.
Morris, 29, has been a senior policy adviser for the Liberal’s Ministry of Health and LongTerm care since June, 2017.
The long- time public servant’s campaign priorities focused on improving access to healthcare, food security and affordable housing for Torontonians.
He also advocated for diversity tt and inclusion to be central to issues such as education, com- munity mm safety and employment practices.
The NDP’s Morrison, 30, is a Regent RR Park resident who iden- tified affordable housing, access to healthcare and medications, and aa improving public transit as critical issues. Morrison, a communications professional, heard complaints from residents about chronic subway congestion and pledged to push for faster, more reliable service.
Morrison also points to her settler and Indigenous heritage as key to how she views policy “““from a progressive and inter- sectional lens.”
Currently, Morrison is on the board of the Urban Alliance on Race RR Relations and volunteers on the Regent Park Neighbourhood Association’s Advocacy and Communications Committees.
The PC Party’s Cartwright, 53, is a human rights lawyer. She was ww a low- key campaign pres- ence after being outed for hiring 20 actors as Doug Ford supporters at a leadership debate in May.
Her Toronto- specific pledges included: Better resources and infrastructure for public school students; creating a more equal, safer, greener Toronto Centre; ending “hallway healthcare” in hospitals; and better front- line, healthcare workers.