Provincial Election Under Way in Lanark Frontenac Kingston

Jeff Green | Jan 30, 2025

By the time this paper comes out, it will be official.

The Doug Ford led Progressive Conservative government is calling an election, to be held on February 27.
At the dissolution of the legislature, there are 79 Progressive Conservative MPPs, 28 New Democrats, 9 Liberals, 6 Independents, and 2 Green Party members.

John Jordan, the first term Lanark Frontenac Kingston MPP, a Progressive Conservative, is running for re-election. He received 50.11% of the vote in the last election, which was held on June 2, 2022.

The Liberal Party candidate, Tay Valley Township Reeve Rob Rainer, was chosen in July of last year. He has been campaigning ever since. The local Green and NDP riding associations began their candidate selection processes in the fall, and in recent days they have each selected a candidate.

John Macrae, who was raised in the Perth and Smiths Falls area and has lived and worked in Ottawa during his adult life while maintaining family connections in Lanark County, is the NDP candidate. He sought the nomination in 2022, and this time he got the nod over Teddy Dong, after a nomination meeting this past weekend.

Dr. Marlene Spruyt was a newcomer to North Frontenac, after retiring as medical officer of health for the Algoma region, when she ran for the Green Party in 2022. She is now a settled member of the North Frontenac community, as she takes a second run for the Greens in Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston.

This will be the last election for the riding before the boundaries are changed as the result of a riding redistribution process. For the upcoming federal election and subsequent Ontario elections, the new riding will be a bit smaller, and will be called Lanark-Frontenac. The section of the riding in the City of Kingston, will return to the Kingston and the Islands riding.

There may be further candidates who will be registered in the coming days and weeks.

The News has contacted the four candidates for their initial thoughts on the election, and we will be publishing full scale interviews with each of them.

While John Jordan has not been campaigning, he released his reflections on 2024 last week, providing a glimpse into the record of local activities that he will be running on. In it, he talked mostly about initiatives in Lanark County, where 65% of the riding’s residents live.

He talked about healthcare funding in Carleton Place, Perth and Smiths Falls, and targeted funding for beef and dairy farms, grain operators and syrup producers. He also talked about collaboration with local municipalities and other levels of government. “We must continue to have all levels of government working together to make our communities the best places to live, work and do business, while expanding services and programs that have a real impact on the lives of the people and families in Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston,” said MPP Jordan.

For his part, Liberal Party candidate Rob Rainer said he was motivated to run in response to the Ford government’s policy direction.

“I strongly oppose what the Ford government has done and what they continue to do with their mandate and I think there are much better public policies and actions that the provincial government should take on a wide range of issues. I am running to win this seat to be part of a Liberal caucus and a Liberal government that would move things in that direction.” He said that while the government has interfered with municipal governments over things like bike lanes, they have underfunded healthcare to such an extent that “2.5million Ontarians don’t have a family doctor”. He also said that education funding cuts amount to “$1,500 per student” in the current fiscal year.

John Macrae, of the NDP, talked about the need to upload responsibility for former provincial highways back to the province, because of the burden they place on ratepayers in small, rural municipalities.
Rural healthcare funding and housing are also issues that he mentioned.

Marlene Spruyt said that the Green Party remains concerned with climate change as a priority, and she said that the tendency to pin the high cost of living to the fight against climate change is wrong-headed.
“People who blame carbon tax policies for the high cost of living are deluding themselves.
There are other factors, and climate change itself is a cost, when you look at insurance, health, agriculture, and other costs.”
(For further information on the provincial election, look to these pages in the coming weeks.).