Oakville North-Burlington backs Liberal Damoff
Pam Damoff has retained her seat in Oakville North-Burlington.
The race was called for the Liberal incumbent just before midnight Tuesday. Later, with all but one of 203 polls reporting, she had racked up 46.4 per cent of the vote and a 5,000-vote lead over Conservative candidate Hanan Rizkalla, who trailed at 38.3 per cent.
“I’m exhausted, but I’m really pleased,” Damoff said. She also said the campaign was the “nastiest” she’s experienced since she entered politics in 1984.
“There are people who are antivaccination, anti-lockdown, anti-government ... who were pretty nasty,” she said, noting she and her volunteers were met with obscenities and chased off of properties when canvassing. “It was a small minority, but I’ve never run into that before.”
The count still excludes many mail-in votes, which were expected to be tallied
s early as Tuesday. Oakville North-Burlington had among the highest number of requests for mail-in ballots in the area at 4,971.
Damoff watched the results come in with family before heading to an end-of-campaign celebration at the Tin Cup in Burlington.
Damoff has been the riding’s MP since it was established in 2015. That year, she won a close race with the Tory candidate, earning 46.7 per cent of the vote.
In this election, she highlighted child care, gun control, green infrastructure, better biking and walking trails, accessible public transit, and supporting seniors and families as her priorities.
Damoff also pledged support for Canada’s tourism industry and to extend the Canada Recovery Hiring Program to Mar. 31, 2022 to allow businesses to hire more workers.
Ahead of the results, Bruno Sousa, the Green candidate for the riding, said his goal was to get 3,000 votes this election.
“We campaigned our hearts out,” Sousa said in an interview.