New Democratic Party candidate Brock McGregor faces loss in Chatham-Kent Leamington municipal election.
Trevor Jones, Progressive Conservative candidate, has been elected in the Chatham-Kent Leamington riding, with the PC Party winning majority for yet another term in the provincial election.
McGregor earned the second-most votes ahead of Rick Nicholls who came third in the election.
“It was a really exciting adventure over this past little while,” says McGregor. “We’re happy with what we did and we’re really proud of the voters we represented.”
McGregor hopes the Chatham-Kent-Leamington riding will gain more support from parties in the future.
“I think its pretty clear that a lot of parties have ignored this riding, and we think that’s really unfortunate. I’d love to see Chatham-Kent-Leamington get a little bit more attention and I really hope that our next MPP is up to that challenge.”
This election faced upheaval within the riding when Audrey Festeryga, Liberal Party candidate, withdrew from the election on May 26 following allegations from the NDP that she had committed election fraud. Any votes for Festeryga during advanced polling were deemed rejected, as per the Election Act.
“We didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about it. At the end of the day there’s rules that need to be followed,” says McGregor. “We’re going to stand up for what’s right, we did the right thing, and we have no regrets for our campaign.”
As for what comes next, McGregor says he hasn’t made any decisions on whether to run for another term on Chatham-Kent council. The deadline to file nomination papers for the October 24th municipal election is August 19th.
