Reid returns easily in Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston

Jeff Green | Oct 22, 2019

Green vote triples in riding

Long serving Conservative MP Scott Reid was returned to Parliament for the 7^th time on Monday night, with almost double the vote of his nearest rival, Liberal Kayley Kennedy.

Reid received 29,405 votes (48.3%) up a bit in percentage turns from the 47.87% he received in 2015. Kayley Kennedy drew 14,926 votes (24.5%) which is down from the 33.75% for Liberal Phil Archambault in 2015. Satinka Schilling, for the NDP, received 8,678 votes (14.3%) up very slightly from the 14.1% of the votes for John Fenik in 2015.

The biggest change in the riding came from Stephen Kotze for the Greens, who received 6,770 votes (11.1%). In 2015 Anita Payne was selected by 2025 voters (3.5%).

Peoples Party candidate Matthew Barton received 1089 votes (1.8%)

The turnout among voters in the riding was down at 70.1%, but that percentage may rise when voters who registered on election day are factored in. 72.9% of electors turned out to vote in 2015.

The candidates in Frontenac Lennox and Addington held their victory rallies close to home, in Lanark County. Scott Reid was at O’Reilly’s in Perth.

It was about 15 minutes past 10 Monday night when CTV News declared Reid elected and the now seven-time MP wasted no time in accepting victory.

“I guess we’d better do this before the leaders get up to speak,” he said.

Of course, Reid thanked a few people: his campaign staff for all their hard work, O’Reilly’s for opening on a Monday night and “my beautiful wife, Robyn.”

Reid also noted that this campaign was one of the most polite he’s ever participated in, commending his opponents for their civility.

Even though there were still plenty of races to be decided, Reid saw the writing on the wall, predicting a Liberal minority, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“We’ll probably be doing this again in a short while,” he said. “But, a minority government does give private members to push the envelope. And I plan on doing just that.”

When asked for an example of his agenda, Reid immediately turned to one of his favourite causes — defibrillators in RCMP cruisers.

“They (the new Liberal government) will have to listen to us more closely,” Reid said. “It would cost less than $10 million to put these units in the 5,600 RCMP cruisers across Canada.”

Reid said that based on the experience of many police forces that do carry them, (Ottawa, New York State and New Jersey), a life is saved for every 17 units placed.

“Since the life of a defibrillator is 10 years, we could save more than 320 lives at a cost of $10 million,” he said.

Meanwhile, down the street at Fiddleheads Bar & Grill, there were some long faces amongst Stephen Kotze’s Green supporters.

However, Kotze himself, while admitting to “a little disappointment,” was remarkably upbeat for someone who’d just come in fourth.

“I said even before tonight that we feel we’ve won,” he said. “We ran a great campaign and did better than ever before. We connected with more people than ever before. I’m very grateful and humbled by amount of work my campaign team put in.”

As to his future in politics, Kotze had this to say.

“Well, I guess I’ll have to stick to the accounting thing,” he said. “But who knows, I’ve got all these Green signs with my name on them.”

Sloan takes out Bossio in Hastings, Lennox and Addingon

In Hastings Lennox and Addington, Derek Sloan of the Conservative Party will be a rookie MP, having defeated one term incumbent Mike Bossio in a race that was close but not as close as the 2015 election, when Bossio took advantage of a Liberal wave to defeat Darryl Kramp, who is now the MPP for the riding.

Sloan received 21,225 votes (41.4%) down in percentage terms from Kramp’s 41.9% in 2015. Bossio’s vote dropped more, however, this time receiving 18,991 votes (37%) down from 42.4% in 2015. Dave Tough for the NDP received 6840 votes (13.1%) a similar total to the 12.7% that Betty Bannon received for the NDP in 2015. Green candidate Sari Watson 2,991 votes (5.8%) represented a doubling of the vote for the party since Cam Mather polled 2.9% in 2015. Adam Gray from the Peoples Party of Canada was chosen by 1274 voters (2.5%) which is about double the national average for the party.

(Note - This article was posted at 9:15am on October 22 and updated at 12noon on the same day.