Provincial Byelection 2026: Shaban holds Scarborough Southwest for Ontario NDP

By JULIA SAWICKI

The NDP has held on to the provincial riding of Scarborough Southwest.

Fatima Shaban was voted in as the riding’s new MPP in the provincial byelection held on Thursday, Sept. 3.

With all 57 polls reported in, Elections Ontario’s results for the Scarborough Southwest provincial byelection saw Shaban with 8,914 votes (40.47 per cent of the vote). In second was Liberal Party candidate Ahsanul Hafiz with 6,674 votes (30.3 per cent of the vote).

In third place was Noor Tarun of the Progressive Conservatives with 5,148 votes (23.7 per cent of the vote). The Green Party’s Mark Bekkering was fourth with 745 votes (3.38 per cent of the vote); followed by Gord Elliott of the Ontario Party 237 votes (1.08 per cent of the vote); Chris Rees of the New Blue Party with 178 votes (0.81 per cent of the vote); and independent candidate Michael Perdelwitz with 129 votes (0.59 per cent of the vote).

Voter turnout in Scarborough Southwest was 26.5 per cent, according to Elections Ontario.

Shaban and her supporters gathered at the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 13 on Kingston Road on Election Night, where they watched the numbers come in and celebrated the results.

“I often say I can’t imagine living anywhere else other than right here in Scarborough Southwest, because you guys are my family,” said Shaban. “This is a community that’s helping me raise my kids, where I grew up, and I am going to fight like hell to make sure we get our fair share.”

“We fought this campaign like never before. We knocked on 177,000 doors. It is out of the ordinary,” she added. “We fought it with precision, smarts, with heart, with kindness, with empathy, with absolutely everything. We ran a campaign that we can be proud of.”

She said fighting voter apathy was a challenge during the campaign.

“One of the many things we fought was apathy. People feel like there’s no one that cared for them. But then we showed up, and we cared, and we listened. And one by one, we won their hearts. We won because the people of Scarborough Southwest cared to show up. And today they decided,” said Shaban.

Marit Stiles, the leader of the Ontaro New Democratic Party, stood by Shaban’s side at the Legion to show her support and say a few words.

“This victory tonight is a victory for every person in this room,” said Stiles. “Everyone who knocked on a door, who made a call.”

“They were coming for this seat hard,” she said. “They threw everything at it. The richest people, the most powerful people; they threw everything at this community. And this community said, ‘we will not be bought, we are going to stand with Fatima Shaban.’”

Shaban also took a moment to speak to the media regarding her win, and the excitement she felt surrounded by members of her community coming together.

“I am feeling absolutely amazing. I am just so grateful to my team. We have worked incredibly hard. This campaign has been nothing short of amazing, we have an amazing team, and I am so thankful to the people of Scarborough Southwest.”

Shaban was previously a federal NDP candidate for Scarborough Southwest in the 2025 Canadian federal election, and again the April 2026 federal byelection. She acknowledged her past political losses and spoke about how she approached the byelection this time around.

“It was a completely different thing. Federally, the NDP was struggling; there were so many things going on. Before, I ran campaigns out of my own living room. I didn’t run to win, I ran because I wanted to have a platform to bring some of the issues that we had,” she explained. “Right now we have the entire team, we had an amazing campaign, we had fundraising, and have broken all sorts of records. It’s completely different. And we have an amazing leader and we have an amazing party. We are the Official Opposition.”

Thursday’s byelection ends the long political saga that started in early February of this year with Scarborough Southwest MP Bill Blair stepping down to become Canada’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. His announcement was followed by Scarborough Southwest NDP MPP Doly Begum who stepped down from the provincial seat to run as Liberal in the federal byelection in Scarborough Southwest to elect a new MP. She won that byelection in April of this year.

After the departure of Begum from the NDP, there were questions about how strong the NDP’s hold in Scarborough Southwest was. Shaban said she believed that Thursday’s result proved the NDP is still strong in the riding and has put that speculation to rest. Begum had held the riding provincially for the NDP since 2018.

“There has always been a little bit of a rumour about if this is really an NDP riding,” said Shaban. “Every incomer builds their own coalition, and they build their own support around their community. For me, it was really starting from scratch. I had to win hearts and earn their trust one by one. And we did that, by knocking on their doors, by showing up constantly, asking them how I can work for them, and how I can represent them. We have done a tremendous amount of work. This was a campaign like no other.”

Stiles also addressed the departure of Begum, saying the NDP continued to focus on those they represent in Scarborough Southwest, and once again acknowledged Shaban as the candidate that resonated with her supporters the most.

“There’s things we can control and things we can’t. And for us, it was very clear that we knew that we needed to continue to represent this riding, that the people of Scarborough Southwest were depending on us, and so when we found a great candidate to do that work, we knew that we had to just pour everything we had into it.”

Finishing in second place with 30.30 per cent (6,674 votes) of the total vote, Liberal Ahsanul Hafiz greeted a venue full of supporters and offered his gratitude for their unwavering dedication to his campaign.

“First and foremost, I would like to thank my campaign team and my campaign manager. They put their absolute everything into it,” Hafiz told a crowd of supporters in the parking lot of Kebab Zone at 3042 Danforth Ave., just west of the riding’s borders.

The Bangladesh-born business owner immigrated to Canada in 2002, landing in Scarborough and leaving soon after to attend the University of Windsor, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics.

Back in May of this year, Hafiz secured the nomination to run as the provincial Liberal candidate in Scarborough Southwest following a controversial nomination race which saw candidate and former Beaches-East York MP Nathaniel Erskine Smith file an appeal to the party after losing by 19 votes (718 to 699). Filed several days after the race, Erskine-Smith’s appeal alleged several irregularities in the nomination process. In a formal statement following an arbitration hearing to discuss the appeal, the Ontario Liberals confirmed Hafiz as the new candidate for Scarborough Southwest, citing their commitment to an “open and transparent nomination process.”

In a media scrum after Thursday night’s results, Hafiz said the incident with Erskine-Smith was “in the past,” and that he heard no mention of it when he was knocking on doors during his campaign.

“That already happened a few months ago, you know what I mean?” Hafiz told reporters. “I did not hear anything at the door, and I think we should not go back to the past and start digging.”

When asked if he felt adequately supported by Scarborough Southwest’s now Liberal MP Doly Begum, he told reporters that the narrative would have been different if the election results had ruled in his favour.

“It’s very hard to say. I lost, which is why these questions keep coming right? But when you win, there isn’t any question,” he said.

Despite this being his first run in politics, Hafiz said he remains open to the idea of running in future elections for the Liberal Party.

“One thing I can tell you is that I have been involved with the Liberal Party for more than 12 years. This is the first time I’ve decided to run for office, and I’m not going anywhere; I’m going to shoot for something, don’t worry,” Hafiz said in his closing remarks.

In a statement released on Election Night after the results came in, Green Party candidate Mark Bekkering thanked the voters of Scarborough Southwest for showing up at the polls for this summer byelection.

“Thank you to every single person who showed up to the polls in Scarborough Southwest. People in my community are tired of the same old election promises that never seem to get done,” he said.

“I remain committed to a new way of doing politics – one that prioritizes a more equitable future for all Ontarians.”

Progressive Conservative candidate Tarun’s Election Night event was not open to media. Beach Metro Community News has not received a comment from him on the results.

SCARBOROUGH SOUTHWEST PROVINCIAL BYELECTION RESULTS

With all 57 polls reported in, Elections Ontario’s results for the Scarborough Southwest provincial byelection are:

Fatima Shaban (NDP) 8,914 votes (40.47 per cent)

Ahsanul Hafiz (Liberal) 6,674 votes (30.3 per cent)

Noor Tarun (Progressive Conservative) 5,148 votes (23.37 per cent)

Mark Bekkering (Green Party) 745 votes (3.38 per cent)

Gord Elliott (Ontario Party) 237 votes (1.08 per cent)

Chris Rees (New Blue Party) 178 votes (0.81 per cent)

Michael Perdelwitz (Independent) 129 votes (0.59 per cent)

Voter turnout was 26.5 per cent.

• With files from Matthew Stephens.