Ontarians are waking up this morning to a new government.
Doug Ford and the PC Party sailed to a majority in Thursday’s provincial election, winning 76 seats province-wide. The NDP has taken over the role of opposition with 40 seats, and the Liberal Party has lost official status in the Legislature with only seven MPPs elected.
The blue wave that swept across Ontario also saw easy wins for the three conservative incumbents in this area.
Monte McNaughton, a possible cabinet member in a Ford government, rolled over the competition in Lambton-Kent-Middlesex. McNaughton pulled in nearly 28,000 votes to beat NDP candidate Todd Case by 11,000.
McNaughton says this was big for the province.
“It’s an important step toward bringing relief to the people who need it, especially our families and small businesses and farmers,” McNaughton says, “but there is a lot of hard work ahead of us.”
In Chatham-Kent-Leamington, Rick Nicholls was an easy winner with over 24,000 votes, 7500 more than NDP hopeful Jordan McGrail. He says he didn’t do it alone.
“We had a lot of people behind the scenes, working on the telephones, meeting and greeting people, taking calls,” Nicholls. “The last four weeks, it’s been a roller coaster ride.”
Liberal candidate Margret Schleier Stahl was a distant third in Chatham-Kent-Leamington, but says she knew going in it would be an uphill battle.
“We came into this campaign, we told we were the underdogs, very little chance of getting any exposure out here,” Shleier Stahl says. “We had a strong showing for our Liberal party and very excited about the hard work our team has done.”
And in Sarnia Lambton Bob Bailey continued the big night for the Tories, winning a 4th term in office.
It seems this election caught the attention of local residents with voter turnout on the rise.
In Chatham-Kent-Leamington, 57.73% of eligible voters cast a ballot in the provincial election, up from 51.32% in 2014.
Voter turnout in Lambton-Kent-Middlesex was up slightly as well, from just 59.37% in 2014 to 62.17% this time around.
Province-wide, voter turnout was up from just over 51% to 58%, the highest its been in Ontario since 1999.