Liberals take tightly contested rematch in York Region battleground
The Liberals took back the swing riding of Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill in a close race with one of their own former party members Monday night.
Leah Taylor Roy has been declared the riding’s winner for the Liberals over Conservative candidate Leona Alleslev.
Richmond Hill resident Surinder Gurm voted for her current MP Leona Alleslev in 2015 — back when Alleslev ran under the Liberal banner.
Six years later Alleslev is on the ballot again as the Conservative candidate, and Gurm went to the polls to vote for her Liberal opponent, Leah Taylor Roy.
“I was very mad when she switched,” Gurm said, referring to Alleslev’s high profile decision to cross the floor to the Conservatives in 2018 and eventually become deputy leader of that party. “I don’t think it was fair to the voters, and so I would not vote for her again.”
Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, for all its switches from red to blue, is a riding that gets to the heart of the competition between the Liberals and Conservatives in 2021. It’s where Alleslev is challenged for the second time by Harvardeducated consultant Leah Taylor Roy for the Liberals, who came up 1,000 votes short of unseating her in 2019.
It was a rematch. A nail-biter. And a stage on which Liberal leader Justin Trudeau and Conservative leader Erin O’Toole have tried to demonstrate they are best suited to lead Canada in 2021.
Historically a battleground riding, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill is a choice testing ground for whether O’Toole’s turn to the centre is resonating with swing voters, or Trudeau’s message about supporting Canadians through the pandemic can win out.
Gurm, who has a daughter living in Calgary, said she’s hard pressed to believe O’Toole’s moderate approach is genuine, citing his support for Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Not condemning Kenney, that was a big thing for me,” she said. “I know O’Toole is trying to rebrand the Conservatives to the centre but I think they do have a problem because they have a more extreme right wing.”
They also have a challenge to the right in the shape of the People’s Party of Canada, Maxime Bernier’s populist group that is pushing for reduced immigration and promising to fight vaccine passports.
Vito Lozer, a longtime voter from the area who said he doesn’t usually vote for the winners, said he’s noticed a difference in the tone of the election this time around, with PPC supporters playing a louder role compared to 2019.
“It’s seeming almost like it’s getting a bit more gloves-off, American style,” he said. He even saw someone driving a pickup truck, waving a F-- Trudeau flag. “It’s like, the lowest form of political discourse coming out right now.”
There was a different edge to the campaign this year, Taylor Roy said in a previous interview with the Star. Off the record, many Conservatives will tell you that what’s fuelling their rise in York Region and other parts of suburban Ontario is anger at Trudeau. And Taylor Roy has certainly felt some of that. One resident yelled “Your leader’s disgusting, you’re disgusting,” at her one night, she said. Another time, a man threatened to shoot a volunteer if he didn’t get off his porch. (The volunteer said he didn’t wait around long enough to find out if it was a serious threat.)
“They’re definitely there,” she said of the furious protesters who’ve dogged the national campaign, “and they shout more loudly, often. But I wouldn’t say it’s the dominant stream. It’s not the dominant conversation.”
In a last-stretch campaign stop in Aurora Saturday, Trudeau stood in the backyard of a family of new homeowners promising more help to young families aspiring to buy a home in the increasingly unaffordable Toronto area.
Taylor Roy, a Harvard graduate, grew up around politics, but she didn’t get into the business herself until 2019, after a long career in consulting (including for McKinsey and Company), alternative energy and non-profit management. Between them, she and her husband have six children, including two daughters they adopted from Russia, the youngest of whom turned 18 the year Taylor Roy first took on Alleslev.
“It’s seeming almost like it’s getting a bit more gloves-off, American style.”
VITO LOZER