Trinity - Spadina

This downtown Toronto riding contains some of the city's most famous landmarks, including the CN Tower, the Rogers Centre, the bank towers, Ontario Place and the Royal Ontario Museum.

The riding stretches from Lake Ontario to the CP Rail line north of Dupont Street. The eastern boundaries are Avenue Road and Queen's Park Crescent, east along College Street to Yonge Street and down Yonge to Lake Ontario. Western boundaries zigzag: Ossington Avenue down to Dundas Street West, across Dundas to Dovercourt Road, then down to the CN Rail line, across to Dufferin Street, down Dufferin, then west around the Canadian National Exhibition grounds to the lake.

Chinatown, Little Italy, Portugal Village, Kensington market, the Annex, the University of Toronto and the Toronto Islands are also in the riding. The riding contains the financial district, many commercial establishments, small businesses and the city's garment district.

According to the 2006 census the immigrant population is 41 per cent, with a diverse mix of backgrounds. There are large Chinese and Portuguese communities. Over 41 per cent listed a language other than English or French as their mother tongue.

Forty-six per cent of residents own their homes. Fifty-three per cent of residents over age 25 have a university certificate or degree. The average family income is $102,655 and unemployment is 6.4 per cent.

This riding was created in the 1986 redistribution from 88 per cent of Spadina and 40 per cent of Trinity ridings. In 1996, a piece of Davenport was added. In 2004, the southwest border was moved west to Dufferin Street and in the southeast, the boundary moved to Yonge Street from University Avenue.

Population: 115,361 (2006 census; an increase of 8.7% since 2001)

Political History

New Democrat Olivia Chow won her first term in this riding when she defeated Liberal incumbent Tony Ianno by 3,681 votes in 2006.

In 2004, Ianno defeated Chow by 805 votes to win a fourth term in office. Chow, city councillor and wife of NDP Leader Jack Layton, also ran against Ianno and lost in 1997.

Liberal Paul Hellyer won a December 1958 byelection in Trinity riding and was MP until he resigned in 1971 and changed party affiliation. Hellyer was defeated by Pierre Trudeau for the Liberal leadership in 1968. In 1972, he was narrowly re-elected as Trinity's MP, this time as a PC. He ran for the leadership of the Conservatives in 1976 and lost. Liberal Aideen Nicholson was elected in Trinity in 1974, 1979, 1980 and 1984.

In Spadina, Liberal Peter Stollery was elected four times from 1972 through 1980. He was appointed to the Senate in 1981, when Trudeau wanted to open the seat to let his principal secretary, Jim Coutts, run. Coutts lost the 1981 byelection to New Democrat Dan Heap, an Anglican minister and city alderman. Heap won the 1984 election in Spadina and the 1988 election in the newly created Trinity-Spadina.

Spadina:

• 1935-53 inclusive - LIB
• 1955 byelection, 1957, 1958 - PC
• 1962-80 - LIB
• 1981 byelection, 1984 - NDP

Trinity:

• 1935, 1940 - LIB
• 1945 - PC
• 1949, 1953, 1954 byelection, 1957 - LIB
• 1958 - PC
• 1958 byelection, 1962, 1963, 1965, 1968 - LIB
• 1972 - PC
• 1974, 1979, 1980, 1984 - LIB

Trinity-Spadina:

• 1988 - NDP
• 1993, 1997, 2000, 2004 - LIB
• 2006 - NDP