the part of Markham west of Highway 404. Both of the ridings Thornhill was originally part of elected Liberal MPs in 1993, though York North's Liberal vote share was about 17% more of the vote than that of Markham—Whitchurch—Stouffville. The riding's redistributed result had the Liberals at 60%, triple the amount of the Progressive Conservatives (PCs). In the 1997 election, Liberal candidate Elinor Caplan, who had previously served in the cabinet of former Premier David Peterson, won with 59% of the vote, more than double the number received by PC candidate Bill Fisch, who came second. Similarly to the previous election, the Liberals had nearly swept the province of Ontario, this time winning all but two seats. In 1999, Caplan was appointed to Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's cabinet as Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. In the 2000 election, Caplan would win again, this time with nearly 65% of the vote and by more than four times the amount won by Canadian Alliance candidate Robert Goldin. Provincially, the Liberals had won another near-sweep of Ontario. In 2002, Chrétien moved Caplan to Minister of National Revenue. During the 2003 electoral redistribution, the boundaries of the district did not change. 2004-2011: Shift to the Conservatives On February 23, 2004, Caplan announced that she would not run in the next federal election. The Liberals then chose Susan Kadis, who was then a Vaughan City Councillor, as their candidate for the next election. In the 2004 election, many ridings with large Jewish populations, Thornhill among them, started shifting toward the Conservative Party. The Liberal Party would end up losing 10% of the vote and they were now at 54.6%, about 20% more of the vote than Conservative candidate Josh Cooper. In the 2006 election, both Kadis and the Conservative candidate got slightly less votes than in 2004. Shortly after the 2006 election, Kadis was chosen to be the associate critic for Infrastructure and Communities. In March 2008, she was appointed National Revenue critic by Opposition Leader Stéphane Dion. In the 2008 election, the Conservative Party chose Peter Kent, an established media personality who had run in St. Paul's in 2006, as their candidate. Kent would end up winning the riding with 49% of the vote compared to Kadis' 39%, possibly due to the fact that Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper promised continued support for Israel. 2011-present: Conservative stronghold Kent served as the Minister of State