Pickering Scarborough-East is a political platypus — a riding that is all 416 at one end and all 905 at the other.

Despite the odd boundary, voters here cite common top issues including jobs, transportation and seniors’ services. Details vary, however, when you cross the Toronto-Pickering border.

For example, transportation issues for the roughly 40 per cent of the riding’s residents who live in east Scarborough focus on TTC service, including subway lines.

Across the Rouge River, in the Durham Region part of the riding that includes southwest Pickering, voters are fed up with highway gridlock and eager for improved GO Transit. On the horizon is the Seaton development, expected to almost double Pickering’s population.

“Durham has felt a bit like a poor cousin in terms of transit investment,” but the Liberal government has made “good progress,” argues incumbent Tracy MacCharles, citing increased GO Transit frequency and Durham Region’s “Pulse” bus between downtown Oshawa and University of Toronto Scarborough.

MacCharles, a former Manulife Financial human resources vice-president who was was named consumer services minister last year, is in a tart-tongued rematch with PC candidate Kevin Gaudet, former director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and president of BrightPoint Strategy.

When Gaudet was tapped by PC Leader Tim Hudak to run in Pickering Scarborough-East in 2011, he trailed rookie candidate MacCharles by more than 5,000 votes. This time, Gaudet says, the race feels closer — he has a presence in the riding and voters, he says, are sick of being “lied to” by the Liberals — but he admits victory is “no slam dunk.”

“I will put my accomplishments at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation up against the lack of accomplishments of this Liberal MPP any day,” Gaudet says. “She’s done nothing for the riding and nothing of note before that that would qualify her to be an MPP ... ”

MacCharles, not surprisingly, disagrees. She says her constituency office helped more than 300 people last year, while at Queen’s Park she has introduced a raft of consumer protection legislation.

“I’m not an expert, but I try to bring people together to try to work through issues,” she says, listing accomplishments including helping secure a $9-million reconstruction, funded equally by three levels of government, of the entrance to the Frenchman’s Bay harbour.

Gaudet’s campaign to unseat her is focusing on jobs, including those at the Pickering nuclear plant, which Ontario Power Generation expects to shut down in 2020 and spend a couple of years decommissioning.

He tweeted on May 28: “Great canvass tonight! Local Lib never does. Abandons the riding like the 10,000 nuclear jobs she’ll kill.”

MacCharles calls such talk false, reckless “fear-mongering.” She says she is active in multi-stakeholder discussions on keeping employment activity at the site — something confirmed to the Star by Pickering Mayor Dave Ryan.

OPG has said that about 3,000 people work at the Pickering plant, plus more at related private firms; that a refurbishment of units at the nearby Darlington plant starting in 2016 will create 25,000 time-limited jobs; and that discussions on the Pickering site’s future continue with all stakeholders.

Gaudet says he has talked with the riding’s Conservative MP, Corneliu Chisu, about technology to recycle nuclear waste that could save jobs. Speaking with the Star, Chisu declined to insert himself into the election, confirming only that he is having such discussions with several parties.

Hunting for votes around Pickering’s upscale Rockwood Dr., Gaudet gets a warm welcome from several homeowners.

Realtor Manny Colucci, his first undecided voter, is open to the PC message, saying: “At the end of the day I need the economy to run on all cylinders.”

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MacCharles’s door-knocking is limited by the fact that she uses a cane, the result of a past bout with bone cancer. Gaudet’s tweet suggesting she doesn’t canvass prompted accusations he was referring to her disability. He calls that “ridiculous,” saying he was only noting that he works harder.

At a Kingston Rd. plaza in Pickering, retired pharmacist Stuart Greenwood tells MacCharles he doesn’t like the Liberals’ misspending. However, he will vote for her because, “At this point I don’t trust Mr. Hudak.”

Also running are: former Pickering councillor Eileen Higdon for the NDP; Anthony Navarro for the Green Party; Libertarian Scott Hoefig; and the Freedom Party’s Matt Oliver.