Candidates seeking to represent the hotly-contested Toronto riding of Eglinton-Lawrence will participate in a debate Monday night at a local synagogue.
Beth Torah Congregation on Glenbrook Avenue, in the North York neighbourhood of Glen Park, will host Conservative candidate Joe Oliver, Liberal candidate Marco Mendicino, NDP candidate Andrew Thomson for a debate Monday evening starting at 7 p.m., organizers say.
The race in the riding has drawn national attention, as it pits Oliver, the incumbent federal Conservative finance minister, against Thomson, a former provincial finance minister in Saskatchewan, and Mendicino, a lawyer and former federal prosecutor.
Oliver has kept a low profile thus far in the campaign, only hitting the headlines when he attempted to give a speech about the future of the Canadian economy at the Cambridge Club – a men’s only society -- in Toronto’s financial district in August. He cancelled his talk after the move drew widespread criticism.
Thomson, made headlines when he was announced as the NDP candidate in the presence of NDP leader Tom Mulcair. Thomson has said he currently lives outside the riding, in downtown Toronto.
Mendicino secured the Liberal nomination in the riding only after sparring with former Conservative MP Eve Adams, who defected to the Liberals in February. Both sides in the nomination race accused the other of improperly signing up new party members.
The Greens have not yet formally nominated a candidate in the riding, which was home to 111,000 people in 2011, according to Statistics Canada’s voluntary National Household Survey.
The riding was in Liberal hands for 32 years - from 1979 to 2011 - before Oliver won in 2011 with 46 per cent support. It's bounded by Highway 401 to the north, Yonge Street to the east, Eglinton Avenue West to the south and railway tracks that run parallel to Caledonia Road to the west.
