Could there be a Round 3?
‘Never say never,’ defeated Conservative challenger says
It was a nail-biter that took until late Monday night to decide, but in the end PeterboroughKawartha Liberal Maryam
Monsef won re-election over Conservative Michael Skinner by nearly 3,000 votes, after winning in 2015 by nearly 6,000 votes.
So will there be a Monsef vs. Skinner Round 3 if the Liberal minority government falls?
Skinner told reporters “never say never” after conceding to Monsef.
“I’m not a quitter, by any means,” Skinner said. “I went into this with a purpose, to try to solve some of the situations we have and to do it as a member of Parliament. I could probably do that a number of other ways as well. So, never say never.”
Monsef has been the women and gender equality minister and minister for international development under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but after the long campaign she said she wasn’t thinking about a cabinet role just yet.
“Tonight I’m going to enjoy my sleep,” Monsef told reporters. “I’m just so grateful that my number 1 job remains my number 1 job and that is to be the MP for Peterborough-Kawartha.”
In her victory speech to supporters at Showplace Performance Centre, Monsef said
Canada was in some ways “a nation divided.”
“Our goal over the next years must be to go beyond simply governing: It must be maintaining the grand consensus that defines Canada,” she said. “Beyond any partisan victory tonight, our ability to find common purpose must be the outcome of this election.
“We must continue to be a nation where our differences are celebrated and not feared,” she also said. “A nation where regional aspirations are respected, but not used to halt grand national initiatives. A nation where compromise is sought after and not avoided. A nation that continues to walk the important path to reconciliation with the First Peoples of this land, and a nation where we can disagree without being disagreeable.”
Monsef told reporters she was prepared to win or lose: “I made peace with every eventuality long before putting my name on the ballot.”
“Every vote matters — that’s the message in this community — every single vote matters.”
Skinner came to her celebration to congratulate her.
Peterborough-Kawartha Progressive Conservative MPP Dave Smith also congratulated her.
“When I congratulated her in person early this morning we agreed to work together to improve the lives of the people we represent,” Smith stated on social meeting.
In his concession speech, Skinner thanked his campaign team for its hard work.
“Obviously this is the second speech that I didn’t necessarily want to do, and the results aren’t what all of us in this room hoped for,” Skinner said at The Venue. “It was very, very close, obviously but close doesn’t cut it in politics.”
With 282 of 283 polls reporting as of Tuesday night, the vote count was Liberal Maryam Monsef, 26,979, 39.2 per cent; Conservative Michael Skinner, 24,096, 35 per cent; New Democrat Candace Shaw 11,698, 17 per cent (down from the NDP’s 18.7 per cent share in 2015); Green candidate Andrew MacGregor, 4,857, 7.1 per cent (up from the Green party’s 2.2 per cent share in 2015); People’s Party candidate Alexander Murphy, 876, 1.3 per cent; independent Robert Bowers, 176, 0.3 per cent; and Stop Climate Change candidate Ken Ranney, 172, 0.3 per cent.