Battleground Ontario

Success in Ontario, which is home to more than one-third of the 338 ridings across Canada, is crucial for all political parties in the Oct. 19 federal election. Here are four ridings to watch.

KENORA: The northwestern Ontario riding is expected to be a fierce three-way battle featuring veteran politicians. Greg Rickford is the Conservative minister of Natural Resources and responsible for FedNor, the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario. Running for the Liberals is Bob Nault, a former minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. Returning to politics is Howard Hampton, who was New Democrat MPP for Kenora-Rainy River for 24 years, served as NDP leader for 13 years and a cabinet minister under former NDP premier Bob Rae. Key issues are job losses in mining and forestry, development of the Ring of Fire mineral deposit and tourism.

SCARBOROUGH SOUTHWEST: New Democrat MP Dan Harris won the riding from the Liberals in 2011 and is not about to give it up without a fight. Harris is facing retired Toronto police chief Bill Blair, running on Justin Trudeau’s team. New Democrats say they will go hard at Blair over his time as chief and the controversial practice of “carding,” in which officers stop and document citizens in non-criminal encounters. Adding interest to the Blair angle is Green Party candidate Tommy Taylor, who was watching a protest at Queen’s Park on June 26, 2010, during the G20 Summit. He says he was rounded up by police, crammed into a tiny cell for 24 hours with 39 others and made to beg for water.

EGLINTON-LAWRENCE: Lawyer Marco Mendicino, having defeated former Conservative MP Eve Adams in the nomination for the Liberals after she defected from the government side, is hoping to continue his streak of luck by toppling Conservative Finance Minister Joe Oliver. That could be a tall order because it has happened just twice since 1930. But the Liberals desperately want the riding back after Oliver unseated veteran Grit MP Joe Volpe in the party’s collapse that year. How high are the stakes? Conservative Leader Stephen Harper has already visited the riding, suggesting it is one that might be up for grabs. Although the riding’s ethnic makeup is shifting, it is heavily Italian with a large Jewish component. Mendicino is Italian and Oliver is Jewish.

DON VALLEY NORTH: The Liberals and NDP are targeting this new riding, one of 15 created in Ontario through redistribution. The Conservative candidate for Don Valley East, MP Joe Daniel, is running here against Liberal Geng Tan, a chemical engineer and co-chair of the Council of Newcomer Organizations. Mobile software developer Akil Sadikali, who was born and raised in the riding, is running for the NDP. Ballot results from 2011 overlaid in the new boundaries would have made this a slim victory for the Conservatives over the Liberals, so insiders are expecting a close race is this diverse riding of 103,000 residents, where about one-third report their mother tongue as English and another one-third are Chinese. Richard J. Brennan and Rob Ferguson