For Conservatives to take the election, these GTA ridings are must-wins

Any feasible path to victory in the federal election for Pierre Poilievre's Conservative Party runs through the Greater Toronto Area, a region dominated by the Liberals since 2015. 

There are 31 seats up for grabs in this election in the GTA, often nicknamed the 905 for its area code. These suburban cities stretching in an arc around Toronto from Burlington through Vaughan to Oshawa are home to more than 2.5 million eligible voters. 

The Conservatives came into this campaign with just four MPs in this region, so making gains here is essential to their success at the national level.

"That is the battleground," said Fred DeLorey, chair of NorthStar Public Affairs and the national campaign manager for the Conservative Party in 2021. 

DeLorey says the Conservatives have for years been consistent in making the 905 a key focus of their campaigns, and this election is no different. 

"This is the type of voter that can go either way if you tell the right message to them," he said in an interview. 

GTA ridings were pivotal to the last federal Conservative election victory, when Stephen Harper's party formed a majority government in 2011, in large part by taking all but one seat in the region. 

The 905's electoral importance has only grown since then, with the region allotted another nine seats due to population growth. 

The GTA also matters because it's home to what campaign strategists call "swing seats," ridings that tend to shift between elections in a way that reflects voter sentiment at the national level. 

While the Conservatives are targeting just about every Liberal-held seat in the 905, here's a closer look at two ridings that are such prime targets they can be considered must-wins for the Poilievre campaign.

The most obvious swing seat target for the Conservatives in the GTA is Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, the riding that gave the Liberals their slimmest margin of victory in the entire 905 in the last election campaign, just 3.1 per cent.  

That makes it a canary in the coal mine for Poilievre's campaign on election night. If the Conservatives can't pry this seat away from the Liberals, it's hard to see how they can take other 905 ridings that the Liberals won by wider margins last time. 

The Conservative candidate here is former MP Costas Menegakis, who won the neighbouring riding of Richmond Hill in 2011. CBC News requested an interview with Menegakis but it was not granted. 

The Liberal candidate in Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill is one-term incumbent Leah Taylor Roy, who worked in both the business and non-profit sectors before entering politics.