Cambridge

This southern Ontario riding has urban and rural areas, including the city of Cambridge and the township of North Dumfries.

Manufacturing, including automotive and some textile production, accounts for 26 per cent of jobs. There is also a strong technology sector in the region.

According to the 2006 census, immigrants, many of them from Gemany or Portugal, make up about 21 per cent of the population. The average household income is $86,497 and the unemployment rate is 5.7 per cent.

The riding was created in 1976 from most of Waterloo-Cambridge and a small portion of Wellington riding. In the 1996 redistribution, the lines were redrawn to take in parts of Wellington and Brant counties. In 2004, part of the city of Kitchener was moved from Cambridge riding into the Kitchener-Conestoga riding.

Population: 129,434 (2006 census; an increase of 8.6% since 2001)

Political History

Conservative incumbent Gary Goodyear won this riding in the 2006 election over Liberal Janko Peric by 5,918 votes. In 2004, Goodyear and Peric had also competed for the seat, with Goodyear winning by a mere 224 votes.

Peric first won the riding in 1993, defeating Reform's Reg Petersen. Peric held the seat in 1997 and in 2000, when he again defeated Petersen, who was then a Canadian Alliance candidate. In the three elections Peric won, the combined Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative vote tally was close to or above Peric's vote count.

Waterloo-Cambridge voted PC from 1925 to 1963, except for one Liberal win in 1953. In 1964, New Democrat Max Saltsman was elected in a bylection and served four terms. The 1979 election in the riding of Cambridge was won by PC Chris Speyer, who held the seat until 1988, when PC Pat Sobeski won.

• 1979-88 inclusive - PC
• 1993, 1997, 2000 - LIB
• 2004, 2006 - CON