The eastern boundary of the federal riding of Scarborough Southwest has been extended east as part of a recent re-drawing of federal riding boundaries.

By MATTHEW STEPHENS

Scarborough Southwest voters in this month’s federal election will be seeing some changes to the size and boundaries of their riding.

The riding’s electoral district borders have – quite literally – spearheaded further east into a part of the Guildwood district.

Scarborough Southwest has seen its eastern boundary branching out from the previous border points of Eglinton Avenue and Bellamy Road North, and Markham Road and Hill Crescent.

The new border line for the riding now runs northeast along the railway line to the Guildwood GO station, and back southwest to the intersection of Kingston Road and Cromwell Road running back along Hill Crescent.

The riding now branches out slightly further east than the previous borders, which initially saw the line end just before the Guildwood GO station along Scarborough Golf Club Road.

The changes are part of the federal riding’s redistribution that took place in 2022 which re-examined ridings across the country.

The new riding boundaries are implemented in the first federal election after their approval and therefore were not in effect for the February provincial election.

That redistribution process saw a number of changes to ridings in Scarborough.

For instance, the former riding of Scarborough-Guildwood has been eliminated and split up between the section added to Scarborough Southwest, and new ridings of Scarborough-Woburn, and Scarborough-Guildwood-Rouge Park.

Ron Parkinson of Scarborough United Neighbourhoods (SUN) said he is interested to see how the new borders will impact voter turnout in the upcoming election.

“Voter turnout is critical. Scarborough Southwest is a very diverse riding, and this election will be tracked to see what the impact is in a very competitive election which should send more voters to the polls,” said Parkinson.

To the north of the Scarborough Southwest riding, the redistribution divided and merged the Scarborough Centre riding further west into the former North York riding of Don Valley East, creating a new riding called Scarborough Centre-Don Valley East.

Parkinson said the new borders may cause frustration or confusion to Scarborough voters who are unaware they’ve become part of a different riding for the federal election only.

“The wild card here might be to what extent this ping-ponging of this particular area bewilders/annoys or frustrates the voters in this neighbourhood, especially since provincially/municipally they are still part of Scarborough Guildwood,” said Parkinson of the changes to Scarborough Southwest.

“The new federal ridings are just for this election. Most people are not aware of the federal election changes as communication is just being shared as the election was being announced. We don’t feel that was fair or responsible to implement such confusion when there was lots of time in advance to announce the changes.”

Here are the new boundaries, and in some cases new names, for ridings in Scarborough in this month’s federal election: