CORNWALL, Ontario – Incumbent Stormont-Dundas-South Glengarry Conservative MP Eric Duncan was re-elected with 13,554 votes with 150 of 250 polls in the riding reporting at time of writing on Monday, Sept. 20.
Liberal candidate Denis Moquin had 5,414, NDP candidate Trevor Kennedy received 2,880 votes, PPC candidate David Anber received 1,916 and Green Party candidate Jeanie Warnock received 571 votes at time of writing.
Nationally, at 11:30 p.m., the Liberal Party was projected to return with a minority government, with the distribution of seats in Parliament being very close to what they were before the election.
At Duncan’s campaign party at the Wing House in Cornwall on Monday night, Duncan felt optimistic for the new Parliament.
“Canadians have sent a clear message that they want the parties to work together,” he said.
After the 2019 election, even though the Conservative Party gained seats, without being able to form government, their then Leader Andrew Scheer was ousted from the leadership. Duncan said he did not foresee the same fate for current leader Erin O’Toole.
“It is the Liberal’s failure here and no one else’s,” he said, saying that he believed that O’Toole performed well during the 36-day election campaign.
Duncan said that he believed the biggest issue the new Parliament faced was one of national unity. Duncan told the media that he believed that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had divided the country with this election and the COVID-19 vaccine, with Duncan going on to say that Trudeau has deepened the divide between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated.
Duncan thanked his campaign team, including Adrian Bugelli, and Sam McDonell. He also thanked his mentor, former Conservative MP Guy Lauzon who celebrated with Duncan on Monday night.
“What I liked about Eric’s campaign is that he ran it the way I used to,” Lauzon said. “Peddle to the metal and all out.”
Voter turnout overall appeared down from 2019, with a little over 30 per cent of total voter turnout with 150 of 250 polls reporting, around half of the total from 2019.
