海角社区官网

And made local concerns take kind of a back seat. Local loyalties, maybe, too.聽

You don鈥檛 need me to rehash all the ways Donald Trump and his threats to annex Canada 鈥� and his desire to make himself the main character even on election day itself with his social media post urging us to vote to become the 51st state of the USA 鈥� dominated the election. Trump turned this thing on its head across the country.聽

But when you turn the heads of voters in the 海角社区官网area codes of 416 and 905, you can swing a whole federal election. It鈥檚 more complicated than this, but an easy shorthand is that the government is chosen in the suburban 海角社区官网905, and the margin of victory is decided in 海角社区官网proper and in Quebec.聽

And how. The 905 gave the Liberals enough seats 鈥� not close to a sweep, but enough 鈥� to win. Quebec turned a bunch of Bloc seats to the Liberals to make it a sure thing. And 海角社区官网all but entirely abandoned the NDP to ice it.

And if you want to know why, just ask Premier Doug Ford, a guy who knows a thing or two about winning votes in 海角社区官网and the GTA. In : 鈥淚t鈥檚 the tariffs, stupid.鈥� In winning earlier this year 鈥� virtually sweeping the 905 and winning a plurality of 海角社区官网seats just weeks ago 鈥� he said, 鈥淚 ran my whole election on Trump.鈥�

Or you could probably ask Bhutila Karpoche, the NDP candidate in Taiaiako鈥檔-Parkdale-High Park, who decided to leave her safe seat in the provincial legislature to run federally back when it looked like the Liberals were going to get wiped off the map. Then Trump got sworn in as U.S. president, and all hell broke loose, and on election night, she lost to Liberal Karim Bardeesy. Such was the fate of the NDP across the city, and across the country.

Looking at the Conservative column of the results, it鈥檚 worth noting that while both the GTA and 海角社区官网itself have a history of sometimes electing conservatives (big 鈥淐鈥� and small), they tend to prefer a particular kind of cheapskate conservative. Lower taxes and smaller government is a message that can sell here. But some things that really seem to work for Conservatives out West (and, not coincidentally, for Trump down south) don鈥檛 have much history of traction here around the big city. Threatening to deport people, or cut off immigration, or railing against woke sensitivity, or complaining about gender non-conformity don鈥檛 have a winning track record here, perhaps because of the diversity of this city and its region. Successful local conservatives like Ford and Patrick Brown consistently focus on pocketbook issues (or finding urban-specific wedges, like bike lanes).

From here in Toronto, the emergence of Mark Carney as a front-runner in a time of chaos recalled a different conservative who was very successful right here in the 416: John Tory.

After the clownshow of Rob Ford鈥檚 mayoralty, Tory seemed like the right kind of boring: a resume as a good manager, competently soft-spoken, with a message of unity and the promise of having a deep Rolodex and sophisticated knowledge of how the system worked and how to get what he wanted in the backrooms where power brokers decide things. He got progressive voters to rally behind him to ward off what they saw as a more extreme and chaotic threat to his right.

海角社区官网eats that stuff up. Trump represents a different scale of chaos, and Carney a different kind of resume. But looking at 海角社区官网voters鈥� reaction in this election, the parallel appeared obvious enough.聽

Across the country, the new alignment 鈥� more of a two-party race than we鈥檝e seen in generations 鈥� created a somewhat unfamiliar situation. That applies even more so in 海角社区官网itself. It makes what exactly this result will mean for the city very difficult to predict, just like everything about the election that produced it.