Payne to wear the green again

Nov 01, 2017

The local Greens have named Anita Payne as the Green Party of Ontario (GPO) candidate for Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston (LFK) in next year’s Ontario election. Payne, who lives in Tay Valley Township, was the Green candidate in the same riding in the most recent Federal election in October, 2015. She is a retired science teacher who has been active in environmental advocacy for many years, most recently with the Citizens’ Climate Lobby.

The local riding has been changed by Elections Ontario since the 2014 provincial election in order to match the Federal riding. Lennox and Addington County is no longer part of the riding. Payne, who has always been easy to identify on the campaign trail because she always wears at least one article of green clothing, will have one advantage over incumbent Randy Hillier in the upcoming election as she is already familiar with the new boundaries. The new provincial riding includes Lanark County in its entirety as well as the County of Frontenac and areas of Kingston that are located north of Hwy. 401.
Anita Payne received 2,025 vote in the 2015 Federal election, which represented 3.5% of the votes cast.

In the last provincial election, which took place in 2014, Randy Hillier was elected in LFL&A with 43.5% of the vote. The Liberal Party candidate, Bill MacDonald, received 29.5%, the NDP (Dave Parkhill) 20.18%, and the Greens (Cam Mather) 6.5%.
The LFK riding recorded a similar result in 2015 as the former Federal LFL&A riding had, with Conservative Scott Reid winning handily. However his share of the vote did drop 12% points (from 59% to 47%) from the 2011 election. 2015 also saw the a large drop in popularity nationally for the Conservative Party, which lost its majority government to a resurgent Liberal party under current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, so that may have been as much a factor as riding redistribution.

The next Ontario election is scheduled for June 7, 2018.