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Schulte elected the first MP for King-Vaughan

October 20, 2015   ·   0 Comments

By Mark Pavilons
Following the national trend, the first MP to represent the riding of King-Vaughan is Liberal.
Deb Schulte became our first MP Monday night, outpacing her counterparts. Unlike the rest of Canada, the local race was a tight one, even though Schulte held the advantage throughout the evening, from the earliest polls reporting in.
Schulte won the election with 25,938 votes, 1,768 ahead of Conservative candidate Konstantin Toubis, who garnered 24,170. Schulte captured 47.4% of the vote. The voter turnout in King-Vaughan was a little over 64% for this historic election.
NDP candidate Natalie Rizzo finished third with 3,571 votes (6.5%) ahead of Green Party candidate Ann Raney, who earned 1,037 votes (1.9%).
Peter Van Loan, Conservative incumbent in York-Simcoe, survived the Liberal onslaught and handily defeated Liberal candidate Shaun Tanaka. Van Loan garnered 24,058 votes (50.2%), ahead of Tanaka who earned 18,083 votes (37.8%). NDP candidate Sylvia Gerl finished third with 4,255 votes, ahead of Green Party candidate Mark Vitala, who captured 1,483.
Paul Calandra, Conservative candidate in Markham-Stouffville, lost to Liberal Jane Philpott.
Nationally, the Liberals won 184 seats and a majority government, with the Conservatives (99 seats) relegated to the Official Opposition. The Liberal gains came at the expense of the Conservatives and NDP.
The Liberal landslide seemed evident from the one-sided results from the east coast, which came in before the polls closed in Ontario.
As the night progressed, volunteers and supporters at the Schulte victory party in Maple went from happy to ecstatic. The crowd erupted every time a Liberal was elected across the GTA and the country. The venue was packed, as people were anxious to get a glimpse of their newest MP.
When Schulte arrived, she was literally swarmed by party faithful and it took her roughly 40 minutes just to make it out of the doorway of 9Baci on Keele Street.
Schulte said she benefited from the “Trudeau wave,” noting the Liberals had a good platform. Trudeau, she said, is “an amazing leader” and as the campaign progressed, people saw that.
“I’m glad to be part of that,” she said. “I’m thrilled. It’s a wonderful opportunity.”
Schulte said she the victory, and the majority, were “over the top.”
“I’m here because of you,” she told her supporters. She was filled with emotion as she expressed her gratitude to those who helped make it happen, including her husband and campaign manager.
“I’m looking at the all the faces,” she said with a smile, pointing out the miles they walked with her on the campaign trail. “The energy has just been incredible.”
With the majority, Schulte said she now gets to carry out some of the things included in their platform for her constituents. The majority is an “incredible gift. Now we can get some of this stuff done,” she said.
While there were some challenges during the campaign, “no one was going to shut the red machine down.”
Schulte said it was a privilege to campaign alongside Raney and Rizzo and she looks forward to working with them in the future. She called them on election day and she said she hopes they both remain active in the political realm.

         

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