Updated: Sun Sep. 07 2008 3:35:13 PM

ctvtoronto.ca news

Since the Conservative collapse of 1993, Toronto has been an overwhelmingly Liberal city, with a few splashes of NDP orange in some inner-city ridings.

As the current election kicks off, that doesn't look like it's about to change.  No leader held a kick-off rally in Canada's largest city.

"Downtown Toronto ... is not very fertile for the Conservatives," Peter Donolo of The Strategic Counsel polling firm told ctvtoronto.ca on Sunday.

"416 Toronto for the Liberals is akin to Alberta for the Conservatives."

While the Conservatives won enough seats to form a minority government after the Jan. 23, 2006 federal election, they did so while being shut out here.

Of the 23 seats up for grabs in the city of 2.5 million people (including Pickering-Scarborough East), the Liberals captured 20 and the NDP the remaining three, taking two away from the Liberals.

The closest the Tories came was in Etobicoke-Lakeshore, but high-profile Liberal newcomer Michael Ignatieff -- bruised by Liberal infighting over the nomination -- still triumphed by more than 6,000 votes.

In the 15 other ridings where the Tories finished second, they never came any closer than 9,500 votes behind the Liberals.  In the two most northeastern Scarborough ridings, they were at least 18,500 votes behind.  However, one eastern riding, Scarborough Southwest, won't have a Liberal incumbent -- Tom Wappel is leaving politics after 20 years.

TV news personality Peter Kent, arguably the Tories' highest-profile Toronto candidate in 2006, finished about 13,000 votes behind Liberal incumbent Dr. Carolyn Bennett in the central T.O. riding of St. Paul's. He will try his luck in suburban Thornhill this time.

In the March 2008 byelections, star Liberals Martha Hall Findlay and Bob Rae kept the Willowdale and Toronto Centre ridings safely in their party's hands, each capturing about 60 per cent of the vote and leaving their challengers in the dust.

Veteran Liberal MP John Godfrey retired this year, leading to a Sept. 22 byelection in Don Valley West that has been subsumed into the current general election call. But any challenger to the Liberals there would have a hill of about 13,800 votes to climb.

Unless the Liberals collapse during the campaign, the Conservatives clearly face a tough battle in terms of making gains in the city itself.

In the days leading up to the election's start, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day appeared with Mayor David Miller to announce $4.9 million in funding for to fight the growth of criminal gangs.

The Conservatives see the crime and safety issue as something they own, and they hope it will help pry votes away from the Liberals. But the 2006 campaign  saw the Boxing Day shooting that left teenager Jane Creba dead on a Yonge Street sidewalk, making crime the hottest of hot-button issues in the city. Still, no Tories won seats here.

NDP vs. Liberal

In 2006, the NDP was the party that made gains in T.O., winning two inner city ridings:

• Former city councillor Olivia Chow knocked off three-term Liberal incumbent Tony Ianno in Trinity-Spadina.
• Peggy Nash duplicated the feat in Parkdale-High Park, defeating Liberal Sarmite Bulte.

Donolo said the NDP could be in a battle in both those ridings this time.

Nash's riding could be the most interesting fight in the GTA. Gerard Kennedy, the Liberal leadership candidate and former provincial education minister, is running  against Nash. The area was his political home during his MPP days.

Nash took the riding by 2,300 votes in 2006, but that's not a large cushion against a formidable candidate such as Kennedy. However, Nash, a former negotiator with the Canadian Auto Workers and the NDP's critic for Industry and Toronto, is no pushover herself.

While Chow bested Ianno, the Liberals are countering this time with lawyer Christine Innes, Ianno's wife.

On the east side of the Don River, NDP Leader Jack Layton, Chow's husband, easily withstood a challenge from Liberal and constitutional lawyer Deborah Coyne in 2006, winning by 7,200 votes.

To the immediate east of Layton's Toronto-Danforth riding, the NDP finished second in Beaches-East York. But former MPP Marilyn Churley couldn't come any closer than 2,800 votes to Liberal incumbent and former cabinet minister Maria Minna. The NDP does represent the area provincially.

The NDP did finish second in York South-Weston and Davenport, but they were far behind the Liberal victors there.

Again, barring the unexpected between now and the Oct. 14 vote, a major upward shift in the NDP's fortunes at the expense of the Liberals appears unlikely -- which means Toronto's political colour is likely to remain dominated by Liberal red.

"But nothing lasts forever," Donolo said.