It seems everything old is new again following Canada’s 44th general election.
Justin Trudeau and his Liberal party have won another minority government, and the two Conservative incumbents in Lambton-Kent-Middlesex and Chatham-Kent-Leamington have held onto their seats.
In LKM, Lianne Rood says it was a far more challenging campaign this time around because of the pandemic.
“We took a different approach to this campaign because of COVID and because in my first term I wasn’t able to connect with people at any events in person, except for two this summer in July at the racetrack in Dresden,” Rood says. “We made an effort to try to get to as many houses as possible, we connected by phone as well.”
Rood earned 28,517 votes with all but one poll reporting Tuesday morning. Liberal candidate Sudit Ranade placed second with 12,011, and the NDP’s Jason Henry earned 10,664 votes.
In CKL, with 269 out of 272 polls reporting on Tuesday morning, Dave Epp has retained his seat in CKL, beating out Liberal challenger Greg Hetherington with 21,605 votes compared to Hetherington’s 15,054.
It was a tight race for third – NDP candidate Dan Gelinas garnered 7761 votes, while PPC candidate Liz Valley was close behind with 7737.
Epp says he’s eager to get back to the work that was interrupted by the election.
“Obviously we had the explosion in Wheatley and while much of that is being led and must be lead by the municipality and the province, turning over stones where the federal government could come in would be obviously another area of extreme focus,” Epp says. “We’ve got the ongoing issues of shoreline erosion in two spots in the riding, southwest Leamington, Erie Shores. And then the fallout from the pandemic, getting the economy started, and our ag sector, going through the harvest now we need to add more value to that.”
As of just after 4 this morning, just shy of 99% of polls across Canada were reporting their results, with the Liberal Party leading or elected in 158 ridings, although one MP will be sitting as an independent. The Conservatives are leading or elected in 120 ridings, the Bloc Quebecois in 33 ridings, the NDP in 26 ridings, and the Greens in two ridings.
Local voter turnout currently sits at 61.5% in Chatham-Kent-Leamington and 66.3% in Lambton-Kent-Middlesex.
Because of mail-in ballots, it will be later today at the earliest before the results are finalized.
