of Foreign Affairs for the Americas until a January 2011 cabinet shuffle when he was promoted to Minister of the Environment. This was met with some criticism as he was the fifth Environment Minister in five years. It also signalled Prime Minister Harper's determination to increase support in the Greater Toronto Area. In the 2011 election, the Conservative Party targeted the riding as part of their strategy to gain a majority government and both Prime Minister Harper and Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff had campaign stops in the riding. Kent ended up increasing his vote share to 61%, compared to 24% for the Liberal candidate. During the 2012 redistribution, the area of the riding east of Bayview Avenue was divided along Highway 407, being transferred to Richmond Hill and the new riding of Markham—Thornhill. Concerns were raised about dividing the community of Thornhill into 2 ridings, suggesting that Concord be excluded from the riding instead. The name of the riding was also an issue, as the proposed name, "Vaughan—Thornhill" was thought to exclude Markham. Markham was initially added to the name before Kent suggested reverting it back to "Thornhill". His suggestion was accepted by the commission. The redistributed result put the Conservatives 2% higher than the actual result. In July 2013, Kent was shuffled out of cabinet, becoming a backbench MP. During his tenure, critics had described him as "Canada's worst environment minister." In the 2015 election, Kent lost about 5% of the vote, now receiving 58.6% to the Liberal candidate's 33.7%. Shortly after the 2015 election, Kent became the Conservative Foreign Affairs critic. After a 2017 shadow cabinet shuffle, Kent became the Conservatives' Ethics critic. In 2019, Kent won his fourth consecutive election with 54.6% of the vote to Liberal candidate Gary Gladstone's 35.4%. After the 2019 election, Kent was appointed critic on immigration, refugees, and citizenship. In 2021, Kent announced he would not run in the next election. Following this, Melissa Lantsman won the nomination to represent the Conservative Party in Thornhill. On September 20th 2021, Melissa Lantsman won the riding of Thornhill by a 15-point margin. Members of Parliament This riding has elected the following members of the House of Commons of Canada: Election results Note: Conservative vote is compared to the total of the Canadian Alliance vote and Progressive Conservative vote in 2000 election. Note: Canadian Alliance vote is compared to the Reform vote in 1997 election.