Federal Election 2025: 10 GTA ridings to watch

The Greater Toronto Area (GTA) will be a key battleground for the Liberals and Conservatives this upcoming federal election, as it’s expected to be a tight race between the two parties come election day on April 28.

Here are 10 of the key races to keep an eye on as election night unfolds.

Ajax

The riding, which the Liberals have held since its creation in 2015, will be without an incumbent for the first time. Mark Holland, who served as Government House Leader and Minister of Health, announced he would not be running in the upcoming election in March.

Toronto Deputy Mayor and City Councillor Jennifer McKelvie is now running for the Liberals, facing off against radio host Greg Brady for the Conservatives.

Bowmanville-Oshawa North

The newly created riding of Bowmanville-Oshawa North is shaping up to be an interesting race between the Liberals and Conservatives. Although it leans Conservative, current MP for Durham and radio host Jamil Jivani is running for the party.

Jivani won the seat in a 2024 byelection after former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole resigned.

He’ll be facing former teacher and principal Bridget Girard for the Liberals and recent law school graduate Elenor Marano for the NDP.

Eglinton-Lawrence

Another seat was left vacant when former Liberal cabinet minister Marco Mendicino announced he would not be running. He is now the Chief of Staff for Liberal Leader Mark Carney.

Former Toronto city councillor Karon Stintz will run for the Conservatives in Eglinton-Lawrence, while Vince Gasparro, who has worked in finance and for former Toronto Mayor John Tory, is running for the Liberals.

According to the most recent polls, Eglinton-Lawrence will likely remain with its Liberal roots.

King-Vaughan

Conservative incumbent Anna Roberts is hoping to hold onto her seat in King-Vaughan, which she narrowly won in 2021 when she beat incumbent Deb Schulte. However, the Liberals, with engineer and community leader Mubarak Ahmed, have made up some ground, leading to another potential close race on April 28.

Peterborough

With newly drawn boundaries, the Conservative-held riding of Peterborough is at risk of flipping to the Liberals.

Incumbent Michelle Ferreri will be facing off against Emma Harrison for the Liberals, a farmer and small business owner in the area, and Heather Ray, who is also a farmer, for the NDPs.

Spadina-Harbourfront

Kevin Vuong won the seat in 2021 just two days after the Liberal Party dropped him. Despite that, he appeared as the Liberal candidate on the ballot, winning and sitting as an Independent during his full run as a Member of Parliament. He decided not to run again in 2025, and the Liberals are likely to recapture the riding in 2025 with candidate Chi Nguyen.

However, the NDP are hoping to gain some ground with their candidate, well-known advocate and former school board trustee Norm Di Pasquale.

Milton East—Halton Hills South

Milton East-Halton Hills South is another newly created riding for the 2025 federal election. Adam van Koeverden was elected as the Liberal MP for Milton in 2019, defeating Conservative incumbent Lisa Raitt. He was re-elected in 2021. Van Koeverden is now running to be MP in the newly created Burlington North—Milton West federal riding.

Former MPP Parm Gill is facing off against Liberal candidate Kristina Tesser Derksen, a town councillor and lawyer, who has shown a recent advantage in polling.

Gill was elected to the Ontario legislature in 2018, representing the riding of Milton for the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario. He served as Minister of Citizenship and Multiculturalism from June 2021 to June 2022, and subsequently as Minister of Red Tape Reduction from June 2022 until he resigned from the legislature in January 2024.

Toronto-St. Paul’s

The riding was once considered a Liberal stronghold until shocking byelection results flipped the seat to the Conservatives by just 600 votes. The June 2024 byelection was seen as a test for former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau amid dropping poll numbers for the Liberals.

Incumbent Don Stewart, a financial and marketing specialist, is hoping to hold onto his seat as he faces former MP Leslie Church, who also served as chief of staff to former Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, once again.

Polling indicates the riding will flip back to red in the 2025 election.

Toronto Centre

Former journalist Evan Solomon will be running in the Liberal stronghold of Toronto Centre after incumbent Marci Ien announced she would not be running the 2025 federal election.

Solomon is facing family physician Samantha Green for the NDP and community advocate Luis Ibarra.

Taiaiako’n—Parkdale—High Park

The first riding with a distinct Indigenous name was created from the Parkdale-High Park riding and parts of the small Southern part of York-South Weston.

The NDP and Liberal candidates both have ties to the area that has flipped between the two parties over the last two decades. The former Parkdale-High Park riding has been held by Liberal MP Arif Virani, a cabinet minister for most of his time in the House of Commons, but he announced earlier this year he would not be running in the upcoming election.

Bhutila Karpoche, who was the MPP for Parkdale-High Park before making the jump to federal politics for the 2025 election, is running for the NDP against Karim Bardeesy, a community leader and former senior advisor to former Premier Kathleen Wynne.

Bardeesy ran against Karpoche for the provincial seat in 2021, but lost handily.

The Conservative candidate, Wladyslaw Lizon, was an MP from 2011 to 2015 in Mississauga, but he lost in 2015 to the Liberal candidate and again in 2019.

Correction: A previous version incorrectly stated that Parm Gill represented the Milton riding since 2019.