[4] He attended primary and secondary schools in the Brampton area and went on to study and graduate from Ottawa's Carleton University.

[4] Ferreira is an honours graduate of Carleton University's School of Journalism, where he received awards for academic excellence and community involvement.

[4] Ferreira's parents—Gilberto and Filomena—were active trade unionists, and he followed their example by becoming a United Food and Commercial Workers union steward at a local drugstore while still in high school.

He was Vice President of Outreach for the New Democratic Youth of Canada from 1997 to 1999, he served on the Ontario NDP's executive from 2002 to 2004 and he was co-chair of the party's LGBT Committee for a number of years.

His main opponent was the incumbent Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) and former Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto chair Alan Tonks.

The main issues in the election, and these were not limited to just York South–Weston, included anger over the governing Liberal party's Sponsorship scandal;[7] Health care; and the first budget by the Dalton McGuinty provincial Liberal government, which included the controversial "Ontario Health Premiums" tax.

Historically, the York South part of the riding had been a CCF/NDP stronghold from the mid-1950s starting with Donald C. MacDonald to the mid-1990s with Bob Rae.

After Rae resigned from the Legislature, the only NDP candidate that even came close to a victory was David Miller (currently Toronto's mayor, at the time a Metro councillor for Ward One), in the 1996 by-election.

[12] At the January 13, 2007 York South–Weston NDP nomination meeting, Ferreira successfully ran against Brian Donlevy to be the Ontario New Democratic Party candidate in the February 8, 2007 by-election.

At his victory party, Donald C. MacDonald (the former Ontario CCF/NDP leader from the 1953 to 1970 and local area MPP for almost thirty years), joined Ferreira onstage in a symbolic passing of the generational torch ceremony.

[15] One of the coincidences of this NDP election victory was, that it came almost exactly 65 years to the day, when the CCF first won York South, in the February 9, 1942 by-election.