If you’re a regular viewer of The Agenda, you’ll know that we’ve shined our spotlight on five different regions of the province so far during the 2007 election campaign:
Central Ontario
Eastern Ontario
Southwestern Ontario
The city of Toronto
and The North
Tonight, we complete the list by focusing on The 905 --- that belt of ridings around the city of Toronto in Halton, Peel, York, and Durham regions.
The ridings are considered crucial to forming a government because unlike so many parts of the province that aren’t really “in play,” The 905 is very competitive.
In 1995, Mike Harris rode his Common Sense Revolution into power with a majority government in large measure because he spoke to the issues that 905’ers seemed to care most about.
The result: Harris won every seat in Halton, Peel, York, and Durham.
And then he did it again in 1999, keeping that suburban and ex-urban coalition together.
But that coalition blew apart in 2003 as Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals won 12 seats to the Progressive Conservatives’ five.
(Tim Peterson, who won in Mississauga South for the Liberals, has since crossed the floor and will run for the Tories this time out).
There are also four new seats in this burgeoning region, indicating its added importance to winning on October 10th.
PC leader John Tory’s plan to extend public funds to religious schools should have helped Conservative fortunes in this 905 region, given the above average concentrations of Sikhs, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and evangelical Christians.
The polls did suggest a few weeks ago that The 905 looked very close, that the Liberals had lost much of their advantage from the 2003 campaign.
Perhaps some published polls in this weekend’s newspapers may indicate where things lie today.
We’ll talk about how the plan to fund faith-based schools is playing out in this region, as well as other issues such as health care and gridlock tonight at 8 pm. Hope you’ll be with us.
