The race is on: Local ridings to watch in this Ontario election

As an Ontario election gets underway Wednesday, there are still some candidate openings in local ridings.

So far, only one riding has four candidates from the major parties currently represented at Queen's Park announced — that's Cambridge.

• See the current list of candidates in local ridings

But there's still time for the parties to get their ducks in a row. Under the Elections Act, for a general election, the candidates would have a little over a week to get their paperwork in.

But when a snap election is called, candidates have until the third Thursday after the date of the writ. That means candidate paperwork is due Feb. 13.

John Milloy, a former MP for Kitchener Centre and a former provincial cabinet minister who is now an assistant professor of public ethics at Martin Luther University College at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, says snap elections can be difficult for parties.

"The idea of going out and finding a candidate literally in a few days ... is just overwhelming," he told CBC Kitchener-Waterloo's The Morning Edition host Craig Norris.

Milloy said parties may have already been talking to people about possible candidacies, but there may now be people who decide to run in the election last minute and that can be a challenge for parties to properly vet people before their name goes on a ballot.

"In this day and age, you have to go through every social media post. You have to look for every skeleton in their closet. The person has to come clean, but you also have to do a little bit of investigative work," he said.

"The vetting process is quite considerable and it weeds out people who do have problems, past problems that could come back and haunt them and just problems that they really shouldn't be in office."

He said the challenge of adding candidates after the writs are issued is that voters might not know who they are or learn what they stand for before they go to the polls.

Races to watch 

All the local races will be interesting, but there are three that currently stand out given the people who are running in the races.

Cambridge has four candidates already named and all of them have experience:

• Brian Riddell is the incumbent and the current Progressive Conservative MPP. He beat former MPP Belinda Karahalios in the 2022 provincial election.
• Liberal candidate Rob Deutschmann was — until last week — a regional councillor. He's also the former mayor of North Dumfries.
• NDP have tapped Marjorie Knight as their candidate again. She's run in the 2018 and 2022 Ontario elections for the NDP and is well known in the community.
• Green candidate, Carla Johnson, is currently a Waterloo Region District School Board trustee and also ran for the Green party in the 2022 provincal election.

Kitchener Centre could also be an interesting race because there's a relatively new MPP in the seat with other experienced candidates looking to win:

• Aislinn Clancy, who was a Kitchener city councillor for about a year before she won the Kitchener Centre byelection in November 2023, is the current MPP and a member of the Green Party of Ontario.
• The Liberal candidate in Kitchener Centre is Colleen James, who is also a regional councillor. James is not resigning her seat but instead will take a leave of absence from regional council during the campaign.
• As well, the NDP have named Brooklin Wallis as their candidate. Wallis is also a familiar name to voters, having run in the 2022 municipal election in Ward 9.
• The Progressive Conservatives have named Rob Elliott as their candidate. He ran in the November 2023 byelection in Kitchener Centre.

Plus, Kitchener Centre is a riding that has elected people from different parties in the past. Before Clancy was the Green MPP, Laura Mae Lindo served the riding as a member of the NDP. Before Lindo, it was Daiene Vernile, who was a Liberal.

Another riding to watch will be Wellington-Halton Hills and that's because long-time MPP Ted Arnott has said he will not seek re-election. Arnott has held that seat since 1990 and most recently has served as Speaker at Queen's Park. 

He said before every election, he has sat down with his wife to talk about whether he should run again.

"This time we concluded it was best I let it go and pass the torch to someone new," he said in an interview on Oct. 23.

"It's my expectation and hope that strong candidates will consider running and the best person will emerge and be successful and represent the riding of Wellington-Halton Hills into the future."

Ontarians will go to the polls on Feb. 27. 

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