Kenora (electoral district)

This page is about electoral districts in Ontario, Canada. For other uses, see Kenora (disambiguation).

Kenora

Ontario electoral district
Kenora in relation to other Ontario electoral districts
Federal electoral district
Legislature	House of Commons
MP	Greg Rickford Conservative
District created	2003
First contested	2004
Last contested	2011
District webpage	profile, map
Demographics
Population (2006)	64,291
Electors (2011)	40,917
Area (km²)	321,716
Pop. density (per km²)	0.2
Census divisions	Kenora, Thunder Bay
Census subdivisions	Dryden, Kenora, Red Lake, Sioux Lookout

Kenora is a federal and former provincial electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that has been represented in the Canadian House of Commons since 2004, and was represented in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from the early twentieth century.

Of the federal electoral districts located in Ontario it is the largest by land mass, and the smallest by population. It encompasses most of Kenora District except for the eastern third, and a small section of the northwest corner of Thunder Bay District. It includes many remote First Nations reserves of extreme Northern Ontario. It succeeds the former federal riding of Kenora—Rainy River.

Geography

It consists of the part of the Territorial District of Kenora lying west of a line drawn due north from the northeast corner of the Territorial District of Thunder Bay (Albany River) to Hudson Bay; and the part of the Territorial District of Thunder Bay lying northwest of a line drawn east from the western limit of the territorial district along the 6th Base Line, north along eastern limit of the townships of Bertrand, McLaurin, Furlonge, Fletcher and Bulmer, and due north to the northern limit of the territorial district.

Federal electoral district

The federal riding was created in 2003 from parts of the Kenora—Rainy River riding.

Member of Parliament

This riding has elected the following members of the Canadian House of Commons:

Parliament	Years	Member		Party
Kenora—Rainy River prior to 2003
38th	2004–2006		Roger Valley	Liberal
39th	2006–2008
40th	2008–2011		Greg Rickford	Conservative
41st	2011–present

Provincial electoral district

Kenora has been a provincial riding since the early twentieth century. For many years, the Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) that it elected sat as "Labour" or "Liberal-Labour" members.

The riding elected Peter Heenan as a Labour representative in the 1919 provincial election. Heenan remained one of only four Labour MLAs re-elected in the 1923 election. He entered federal politics in the 1925 federal election and was elected a Liberal MP and served as Minister of Labour in William Lyon Mackenzie King's Cabinet.

In the 1929 election, Earl Hutchinson recaptured Kenora as a Labour candidate. He was re-elected in the 1934 provincial election, but gave up the seat to make way for Heenan who was to be appointed to cabinet. Heenan ran in the subsequent by-election, this time as a Liberal Party candidate, and was elected. He joined Mitchell Hepburn's Cabinet and served as Minister of Mines and Forests (1934–1941) and Minister of Labour (1941–1943).

Heenan was defeated by William Docker of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (a social democratic party) in the 1943 election that routed the Liberals and reduced them to third party status. Subsequently, the Liberals ran Albert Wren as a "Liberal-Labour" candidate unsuccessfully in the 1948 election before his victory in the 1951 election.

Albert Wren of Kenora was the longest serving "Liberal-Labour" Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP, as MLAs were called after 1938), sitting in the Ontario legislature from 1951 until his death in 1961. He ran for the leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party in 1954, coming in second, and again in 1958, coming in last. Robert Gibson succeeded Wren as the "Liberal-Labour" MPP for Kenora and served until the 1967 election.

T. Patrick Reid was elected "Liberal-Labour" MPP for the neighbouring riding of Rainy River in the 1967 election He ran as a "Liberal" in the 1971 election, and 1975 election. He reverted to the "Liberal-Labour" label for the 1977 election, and returned to being a "Liberal" MPP in 1981 election, and left politics in 1985.

The riding was abolished into Kenora—Rainy River prior to the 1999 election when provincial ridings were defined to have the same borders as federal ridings. It will not be recreated for the next election, because the ridings in Northern Ontario are not changing provincially.

Federal election results

Canadian federal election, 2011
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%	Expenditures
	Conservative	Greg Rickford	11,567	47.05	+6.59	-
	New Democrat	Tania Cameron	6,855	27.88	+4.65	-
	Liberal	Roger Valley	5,381	21.89	-9.74	-
	Green	Mike Schwindt	636	2.59	-2.09	-
	Independent	Kelvin Chicago-Boucher	147	0.60		-
Total valid votes			24,586	100.00
Total rejected ballots			120	0.49	+0.09
Turnout			24,706	60.38	+5.01
Eligible voters			40,917

Canadian federal election, 2008
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%	Expenditures
	Conservative	Greg Rickford	9,395	40.46	+9.47	$80,724
	Liberal	Roger Valley	7,344	31.63	-4.89	$63,788
	New Democrat	Tania Cameron	5,394	23.23	-6.72	$59,298
	Green	JoJo Holiday	1,087	4.68	+2.14	$362
Total valid votes/Expense limit			23,220	100.00		$90,484
Total rejected ballots			94	0.40	+0.09
Turnout			23,314	55.37	-8.11
	Conservative gain from Liberal		Swing	-7.18

Canadian federal election, 2006
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%	Expenditures
	Liberal	Roger Valley	9,937	36.52	+0.29	$75,329
	Conservative	Bill Brown	8,434	30.99	+3.07	$62,258
	New Democrat	Susan Barclay	8,149	29.95	-2.11	$79,469
	Green	Dave Vasey	692	2.54	-1.26	$0
Total valid votes/Expense limit			27,212	100.00
Total rejected ballots			85	0.31	-0.22
Turnout			27,297	63.48	+8.22

Canadian federal election, 2004
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%	Expenditures
	Liberal	Roger Valley	8,563	36.23		$66,623
	New Democrat	Susan Barclay	7,577	32.06		$34,796
	Conservative	Bill Brown	6,598	27.92		$27,132
	Green	Carl Chaboyer	898	3.80		$1,530
Total valid votes/Expense limit			23,636	100.00
Total rejected ballots			126	0.53
Turnout			23,762	55.26

See also

• List of Canadian federal electoral districts
• Past Canadian electoral districts

External links

• Riding history from the Library of Parliament
• 2011 results from Elections Canada
• Campaign expense data from Elections Canada