Doly Begum looms large over Scarborough Southwest byelection

“I’m a Liberal member, I’m a strong Liberal member so I’m looking forward to what happens,” the rookie Grit MP told the Star this week when asked which party she would help in the byelection.

“I represented this community at the provincial level and I know the work required. It’s very important work and of course I look forward to working with the person that the people of this community select.”

As a New Democrat, Begum won Scarborough Southwest three times provincially — in 2018, 2022 and last year — and the NDP believes tenant advocate Fatima Shaban can hold the riding for the official opposition party.

Shaban was also the federal New Democratic candidate in April, when she received 5.9 per cent of the popular vote to Begum’s stunning 69.6 per cent for the Liberals.

Against the backdrop of that success, NDP Leader Marit Stiles has expressed hope her former caucus colleague sticks to her federal lane in the provincial contest.

But the Ontario Liberals are banking on Begum helping them win a seat they held for 15 years before she took it for the NDP in 2018.

They want her campaigning for their candidate Ahsanul Hafiz, owner of 30 Domino’s pizza outlets, who canvassed for the federal Liberals in the spring byelection.

Like Begum — and Progressive Conservative candidate Dr. Noor Tarun, a family physician — Hafiz is a prominent member of the riding’s Bangladeshi-Canadian community, while Shaban is the daughter of a Slovakian mother and Egyptian father.

The pizza magnate defeated one-time provincial Liberal leadership hopeful Nate Erskine-Smith, then the MP for neighbouring Beaches—East York, in a bitter May nomination race in Scarborough Southwest.

That forced Erskine-Smith, who challenged the results and has since resigned from federal politics, to abandon his bid to lead the Ontario Liberals.

Premier Doug Ford, meanwhile, has said that without Begum on the ballot — she won 42.9 per cent of the popular vote in the 2025 election when her fellow New Democratic candidates only took 18.6 per cent provincewide — his Tories may be able to eke out a victory in a riding they last won in 1999.

“She’s very good. I’ve always gotten along with Doly. She’s a very good person,” Ford said earlier this year.

But the premier has also emphasized his three-term PC government has delivered for Scarborough with improved transit, like the Eglinton Crosstown LRT,  the forthcoming subway and hospital construction.

“Subways, hospitals, long-term care, community centres, we’ve done a lot for the people of Scarborough,” he said.

There may, however, be one issue that hurts the Tories in lakefront Scarborough Southwest: Ford’s stalled plan to expand Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport for commuter jets.

Both the provincial New Democrats and Liberals oppose the premier’s proposed runway extension at the island airport, which is owned and operated by the Toronto Port Authority.

Begum pointed to Carney’s July 24 decision to nix Ford’s scheme after 87 per cent of 87,000 respondents to an online public consultation panned the idea.

“I had a lot of really good conversations about what people want and of course safety is very important, environment is very important, the green space issue was really important as well,” she said of her constituents’ concerns.

“I actually had a lot of individual conversations on top of the survey as well, which was really important, and of course we heard what the prime minister said as well.”

With a federal byelection Aug. 31 to pick Erskine-Smith’s successor in Beaches—East York, Carney’s party had its own challenges with Billy Bishop.

Provincial byelections will also be held Sept. 3 in York—Simcoe and Hamilton East—Stoney Creek to elect successors to former Tory ministers Caroline Mulroney and Neil Lumsden.