Kathleen Wynne resigns as Liberal party leader
LINDSAY – Progressive Conservative MPP Laurie Scott will return to Queen’s Park to represent Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock for a fifth term, this time as part of a majority government and not the Official Opposition.
She was elected with more than 55 per cent of the vote in Thursday’s provincial election, followed by Zac Miller of the New Democratic Party (27 per cent) and Brooklynne Cramp-Waldin-sperger of the Liberal Party (10 per cent).
A “thankful and humbled” Scott said she is looking forward to working as part of the government shortly after her victory was called.
“It was very overwhelming to see a majority called as soon as it was. It’s a very exciting time,” she said from election night headquarters at Lindsay Golf and Country Club. “It says a lot … it was time for a change.”
Miller, a first-year political science student at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology in Oshawa, was proud of his campaign as well as the progress of the party – which will form the Official Opposition.
He promised to stay politically active in the coming years.
“The work doesn’t stop here. We can hold Doug Ford to account … I won’t stop fighting for that,” he said from the party’s election night headquarters at the campaign office on Kent Street West.
Scott was first elected in 2003 after fellow Conservative Chris Hodgson had represented then called Haliburton-Victoria-Brock since 1999. She won the riding in the 2014 election with nearly 41 per cent of the vote.
The Kinmount native worked as a registered nurse at Lindsay’s Ross Memorial Hospital and Toronto General Hospital before entering politics. She ran in the 2000 federal election, finishing behind longtime Liberal MP
John O’Reilly.
Her late father, Bill Scott, was the federal Progressive Conservative MP for the riding from 1965 until 1993.
Cramp-Waldinsperger, a political science student at Western University, spent election night at the party’s campaign office on Lindsay Street South.
There were four other candidates in Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock – one of Ontario’s largest ridings, at nearly 11,000 sq. km.
Lynn Therien, a Fenelon Falls native and who now lives in Barrie and works as a junior broker at Toronto-based Solar Brokers Canada, represented the Green party.
Party leader Mike Schreiner, who won in Guelph to become the party’s first MPP, ran in Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock in the 2009 byelection where Liberal Rick Johnson edged Progressive Conservative candidate John Tory. Scott regained the seat she gave up for Tory in 2011, winning with more than 45 per cent of the vote.
Gene Balfour, a retired professional recruiter who lives in Fenelon Falls, represented the Ontario Libertarian party for a sixth time. The longtime Thornhill resident is also the chairman of the party, which aims to reduce the size, scope and cost of government.
Chuck MacMillan, a Lindsay resident and chief custodian who has worked in the education sector for more than 30 years, represented Consensus Ontario. He co-founded the party that advocates for consensus-based governance.
Thomas Rhyno represented the None of the Above Direct Democracy party, which campaigns for three R’s – referendum, responsibility and recall legislation.
Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock contains more than 120,000 residents – including nearly 90,000 of whom can vote, according to Elections Ontario.
Cavan-Monaghan Township is the lone part of Peterborough County in Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock after boundary lines were redrawn to move the Municipality of Trent Lakes and North Kawartha Township into Peterborough-Kawartha.