Voters in Hamilton, Niagara head to the polls today. Here's what you need to know
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Voters in the Hamilton and Niagara areas, along with the rest of Ontario, head to the polls today.
PC leader Doug Ford triggered an early provincial election on Jan. 28, framing the decision as a strategy in a potential trade war with the United States.
Since then, candidates across the province have sought to define the election, and promised Ontarians solutions to a variety of challenges, from a doctors shortage to the housing crisis to the impact of the tariffs on jobs.
Voters told CBC Hamilton they cared about issues such as health care, college cuts, rent control, domestic violence and protecting farmland.
This region is one to watch, experts say, as several local races appear close. On Wednesday, the PC, Liberal and NDP leaders were all in the area — which suggests they think it's competitive, Brock University politics professor Stefan Dolgert said.
Polling stations open until 9 p.m.
Polling stations will be open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Thursday. If you're in line at 9 p.m., you will still be able to vote.
Elections Ontario has plenty of information on how to find your polling station and what ID you need to bring. You do not need your voter information card to cast a ballot.
About 44 per cent of eligible voters came out for the 2022 election — a historic low. Advance poll results show about six per cent of voters voted early this year.
CBC News will have the results from all 124 ridings soon after the polls close. CBC Hamilton will update this story throughout the day.
After polls close, CBC coverage of results for the Hamilton, Niagara, Brantford, Burlington and Haldimand ridings can be found here and will be updated throughout the evening.
Riding profiles
Want to know who is running in your riding? CBC Hamilton has a profile for each local riding:
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Toronto Sun
2 hours ago
- Toronto Sun
LILLEY: Carney's multi-layered defence announcement is good news
Government finally heeding decades of calls to boost military spending. Get the latest from Brian Lilley straight to your inbox Prime Minister Mark Carney greets Canadian troops of the 4th Canadian Division as he attends a tour of the Fort York Armoury in Toronto on June 9, 2025 in Toronto. Carney has pledged to meet NATO's 2% spending pledge this fiscal year. Photo by Cole Burston / GETTY IMAGES The announcement that the Carney Liberal government in Ottawa would increase defence spending was multi-layered. There was a domestic message about taking national security seriously, a message to Canadian industry that investment is coming and a message to Donald Trump that Canada is getting serious once again. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account While Carney said this message was for Canadians, Trump and the need for a trade deal was clearly a motivating factor. 'Canada will achieve NATO's 2% target this year, half a decade ahead of schedule,' the prime minister said during a speech at the University of Toronto. Canada has long promised to spend 2% of GDP on defence as part of being a member of NATO but hasn't hit that mark since 1990. That was under the Mulroney government at the end of the Cold War and after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the USSR, interest in defence spending faded away like Soviet communism. We got lazy, we became complacent, we relied too heavily on the Americans, and we believed no one would want to harm us, that is if they could reach us. 'The long-held view that Canada's geographic location will protect us is becoming increasingly archaic. Threats which felt far away and remote are now immediate and acute. And as our climate changes and the polar ice recedes Canada's arctic is becoming more accessible and more vulnerable,' Carney said. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. So, to that end, Carney announced that defence spending in Canada will rise from just shy of $40 billion in the current 2025-26 fiscal year to $62 billion. Some of that will happen by moving existing government spending to the defence budget, so there isn't really an increase. For example, the Canadian Coast Guard is currently part of Fisheries and Oceans to the Department of National Defence along with its current $4.5-billion budget. The Coast Guard will then also have additional duties 'to better secure our sovereignty and expand maritime surveillance.' There will also be a push to boost Canada's defence industrial capacity with contracts in areas like light armoured vehicles, ammunitions and more going to Canadian companies. On this front, Carney described the spending as increasing defence spending while also supporting good paying jobs in Canadian industries. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'We will ensure that every dollar is invested wisely, including by prioritizing made-in-Canada manufacturing and supply chains,' Carney said. There are real questions about whether DND can spend this much money and do it wisely. The Canadian Armed Forces are currently short almost 15,000 active-duty members. Recruitment has been a problem for the past several years, but so has retention as members leave in droves. A pay boost that will be part of this increase in defence spending should help with recruitment. Having up-to-date equipment instead of antiquated or broken equipment should help. In his remarks Monday, Carney noted that only one of our four submarines is seaworthy. Read More This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. How can a country like Canada operate a navy with just one working sub? To really increase recruitment the military doesn't necessarily need to spend more money, but they do need a culture change. They need to drop the woke mentality that has seen the Royal Canadian Navy push to drop Heart of Oak as their march song. The 2% pledge comes now; expect Carney to announce future increases either just before or at the NATO meetings taking place June 24-25 in The Hague. It's all part of trying to secure a new deal with the United States under President Donald Trump. While Trump's claim that the U.S. was subsidizing Canada were mostly false, on defence it was true. By making this announcement, the Carney government is helping set the table for an announcement of a new deal with the Americans before the G7 meetings start in Alberta this coming Sunday. RECOMMENDED VIDEO Toronto Blue Jays Olympics World Toronto & GTA Canada
Winnipeg Free Press
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- Winnipeg Free Press
Carney easing into the job, and Canadians' low expectations suggest they're just fine with that
Opinion It's the honeymoon that is defying all the odds. Six weeks or so after the federal election, Prime Minister Mark Carney continues to do a remarkable job of growing support for his government. National public opinion polls show Carney's Liberal government gaining modestly in popularity even though, other than striking a new cabinet, jousting with U.S. President Donald Trump and gathering with Canada's premiers to talk about strategic infrastructure, he hasn't done that much. In some cases, he's done nothing at all. CHRIS YOUNG / THE CANADIAN PRESS Prime Minister Mark Carney has not done much since being elected, and yet his support continues to grow. The new prime minister, for example, has turned aside demands from inside and outside the House of Commons to table a budget before Parliament breaks for the summer at the end of this month. Among the biggest concerns about not having a budget is the fact that Carney would be making spending decisions without the direction of the House of Commons, a bad look for a minority government. Those arguments have not swayed Carney, who became the Liberal leader in early March and almost immediately called a federal election. He has promised to introduce a new spending plan sometime this fall. No matter. Carney's decision to skip the budget has had zero negative impact on his popularity. Nanos Research found that in early June, right as Carney was shunning demands for a budget, the Liberals had opened up a six-point lead over the Conservatives. That may not seem like a huge margin but when you consider how tight the April election was, it is statistically significant. Meanwhile, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's trend line is heading in the opposite direction. In the same Nanos poll, Poilievre's approval rating is hovering at about 28 per cent, a 12-point drop from the election. The fact that Poilievre lost his seat in the election but refused to resign as leader has, no doubt, contributed to his declining support. It all adds up to a somewhat surprising scenario: Carney has not really done anything since getting elected, and yet his support is continuing to grow. Abacus Data found that in early June, the Carney government had a 53-per-cent approval rating, up an astounding 30 points from the beginning of the year when former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was still in charge. As well, Abacus found 38 per cent of Canadians believe the country is headed in the right direction, the highest level of optimism in government in three years. What, you may ask, is the basis for our growing optimism? Inflation has moderated and interest rates have gone down slightly, but not because of anything the Carney government has done. And none of his biggest campaign pledges — most notably approving strategic national infrastructure and easing the housing crisis — have been even partly fulfilled. Carney's continuing honeymoon appears to be built on a series of external factors that have combined to create a safe port in an otherwise stormy political environment. The biggest of these advantages is the simple fact that Carney is neither Trudeau nor Poilievre, two politicians that Canadians clearly did not want leading the country. Carney also continues to benefit from the fact that he has proven to be an able foe for the Trump administration's volatile rants and irrational trade policies. Carney is also, rather surprisingly, benefiting from historically low expectations. A Nanos survey taken in the first few days of June found that 38 per cent of respondents do not expect the Carney government to deliver on major pledges, or solve big problems, before the end of the year. Although 17 per cent do think there should be measurable progress on big files by summer, an almost equal number (about 12 per cent think) think tangible results won't come until next year. The final advantage that Carney is exploiting is that there are no other alternatives for voters to consider. The Tories remain shackled to Poilievre's desperate plan to remain as leader and await a byelection so he can be readmitted to the House of Commons. It's a bad idea that poll results suggest is only getting worse in the eyes of voters. Tuesdays A weekly look at politics close to home and around the world. The argument for keeping Poilievre was based on the fact that he received more votes and won more seats than the Tories had in the previous election. However, Poilievre's supporters ignore the fact that he has always been significantly less popular than his party, which makes him less of a saviour and more of a millstone going forward. And then there is the NDP, the only other party in the current political melodrama that has a theoretical hope of denting Carney's Teflon surface. Lamentably, nobody seems to want the job of leading the party now that Jagmeet Singh has been dispatched to the political graveyard. Without a dynamic leader, it's hard to imagine the NDP eating into anyone else's support. The stars have clearly aligned for the Carney government. He hasn't had to do the tough work of drafting a budget and his principal political opponents are too disorganized to mount any serious threat of toppling the minority government and triggering a new election. It won't last forever. But right now, with nothing but political tailwinds pushing Carney forward, it feels like it just might. Dan LettColumnist Dan Lett is a columnist for the Free Press, providing opinion and commentary on politics in Winnipeg and beyond. Born and raised in Toronto, Dan joined the Free Press in 1986. Read more about Dan. Dan's columns are built on facts and reactions, but offer his personal views through arguments and analysis. The Free Press' editing team reviews Dan's columns before they are posted online or published in print — part of the our tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Winnipeg Free Press
3 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
700 people evacuated by military as northern Ontario wildfire threatens First Nation
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