Liberals’ Coteau defeats council veteran
Michael Coteau will stay on at Queen’s Park. In a tight race, the Liberal held onto his Don Valley East seat on Thursday, defeating longtime Toronto city councillor and Ontario Progressive Conservative candidate Denzil Minnan- Wong.
“This is my sixth election and this is the hardest one I’ve ever gone through,” he said shortly after aa the crowd chanted “Mi- c chael, Michael, Michael!” at his victory party.
“There was an obvious disconnect between our party and the way people wanted to go. At the end of the day, we need to move forward in a path that connects us back to our Liberal base which ww I still believe is the ma- jority of Ontarians.” Coteau wouldn’t comment when ww asked if he would run for the tt leadership if Premier Kath- leen Wynne resigned as party leader, which she did, later that night. “Kathleen Wynne has done so much for this province,” he said. “As a caucus, we have to sit down and talk about what the next steps are.”
Coteau immigrated to Canada in 1975 from Britain and settled in Don Mills with his parents and two brothers. He grew up in Flemingdon Park, which is in the riding.
Just over 13,000 votes went to Coteau, compared to just shy of 12,000 for Minnan- Wong, who first got his city council seat by appointment when former North York councillor Barry Burton died in 1994. In the municipal elections later that year, Minnan- Wong won his seat and aa kept it until amalgamation in 1998.
After amalgamation, he became councillor for Ward 34 Don Valley East. Minnan- Wong was ww re- elected in 2014 with 63 per cent of the vote and was appointed deputy mayor by Mayor John Tory after the 2014 election. “We ran a good campaign here,” Minnan- Wong said shortly after conceding defeat. “I’m happy to help out anyway I can. It was a good campaign. We talked about the issues and we came very close.”
Ontario NDP candidate Khalid Ahmed grew up in the riding and a is a graduate of Seneca Col- lege’s social service worker program. He worked for the nonprofit John Howard Society, which ww provides for the effective integration into the community tt of those in conflict with the law, his website said.