SWING RIDING PROFILE: Niagara South

In the last election, this riding was a close three-way fight between the Liberals, Conservatives and NDP, but it appears to be much closer this time.

Vance Badawey [LPC], Fred Davies [CPC], Chantal McCollum [NDP]

Niagara South is a new seat made up of most of the old riding of Niagara Centre. In the last election, Niagara Centre was a close three-way fight between the Liberals, Conservatives and NDP, but it appears to be much closer this time.

The Conservative-leaning community of Fort Erie has been added, and the more Liberal and NDP parts of St. Catharines have been removed from the riding. It’s now a two-way fight between the Conservatives and Liberals. In fact, if the last election had been fought on the new boundaries, the Conservatives would have actually won by only 298 votes.

The riding follows most of the Welland Canal, which allows ships to bypass Niagara Falls and travel between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. This gives the riding a long industrial heritage, particularly in the canal-side communities like Welland. This industry attracted French-Canadians in the 20^th century, giving Welland. 13% of people in the riding are of French descent, but only 1% still speak the language at home.

The riding is significantly less well-educated than average, with only 15% of adults having university degrees, only half of the provincial figure. It’s older with more than 23% of the population being senior citizens. The seat is also lower income with only about 6% of people making more than $100,000 per year.

Despite the narrow results, what is now Niagara South has been represented pretty consistently by left-of-centre politicians. The current Liberal MP, a former mayor of Port Colborne, Vance Badawey, was elected in 2015, defeating the NDP’s Malcolm Allen. For much of the 1980s and 1990s, the seat was held by long-time Liberal Speaker of the House of Commons Gib Parent.

Badawey is running again in 2025 despite having no real accomplishments in ten years as an MP. This time, he will face off against Fred Davis, an elected Regional Councillor representing Port Colborne. Davis is a former two-term elected school trustee and business leader. The NDP are running lawyer, community activist and Welland-resident Chantal McCollum.

Niagara South is an essential building block on the Conservative quest for a majority government. The only reason it is still close is that the NDP have been collapsing in Ontario since Trudeau’s departure, allowing the Liberals to grow their expected vote share.