Incumbent Vandenbeld keeps seat for Liberals
Jobs, affordability and childcare were a key focus in her ‘positive campaign’
Liberal Anita Vandenbeld held on to this riding Monday after a campaign that featured a rematch against Conservative challenger Abdul Abdi.
“We have showed that you can run a positive campaign and win,” Vandenbeld told supporters gathered at Colonnade Pizza on Carling Avenue to watch results Monday night and listen to upbeat music.
Vandenbeld took a commanding early lead and held on to it. By 10:45, p.m., with 30 of 231 polls reporting, Vandenbeld had 44.7 per cent of the vote, followed by Abdi with 27.8 per cent and NDP candidate Angella MacEwen with 19.3 per cent.
Vandenbeld, who sat on the standing committee on the status of women and chaired the special committee on pay equity in the last Parliament, has said she wants to do politics differently.
Vandenbeld kept a relatively low profile during her first term. She came to attention in 2018, though, when she was criticized by the federal ethics commissioner for making robocalls on behalf of her husband during his run as a municipal candidate in Ottawa. The commissioner recommended that no sanctions be imposed because her actions reflected an error in judgment made in good faith.
She cited jobs and affordability, particularly childcare, as key issues during the campaign.
Vandenbeld has connected to community members through frequent coffee get-togethers.
“I’m not the kind of parliamentarian who looks for my name in the newspaper, or makes partisan attacks. I work collaboratively with communities,” she told an all-candidates meeting during the campaign.
In 2015 Vandenbeld won the riding with 55 per cent of the vote. Abdi, a veteran Ottawa police officer who took unpaid leaves of absence to run, took 30 per cent of the vote.
By 9:45 p.m., about 50 supporters had arrived at Abdi’s campaign party at the Marconi Centre on Baseline Road, which was decorated with campaign signs and blue-and-white balloons.
Abdi, who came to Canada as a refugee escaping civil war more than 30 years ago, had said that focusing on crime was his biggest priority.
The riding, previously held by former Conservative cabinet minister John Baird, was targeted by the Tories, who believed they could win this time. Baird had held the riding for nearly a decade.
MacEwen, an economist with the Canadian Union of Public Employees, said she was running for the NDP because of concerns about climate change and inequality.
“I don’t know what things are going to be like for my daughter and her generation growing up in this environment,” she said.
Nine candidates ran in the riding, which consists of neighbourhoods west of the downtown. They included Green candidate David Stibbe and candidates from the People’s Party of Canada, and the Communist, Marxist Leninist and Christian Heritage parties as well as an independent. Voting in the riding was marred by problems at nine polling stations, which didn’t open on time because staff weren’t on site.
Among those turned away was Hélène Nadeau, 89, who has voted in every election since she was 21, when Louis St-Laurent was prime minister. She didn’t vote Monday after walking twice to her local polling station at Woodroffe High School and being told there was no deputy returning officer.
Elections Canada officials said anyone in line at 9:30 p.m. would be allowed to vote. epayne@postmedia.com