With over 50 per cent of the votes, Progressive Conservative Jim McDonell was elected as MPP for Stormont, Dundas and South Glengarry (SD&SG) on October 6.
"It's great to see the riding go blue!" said McDonell to about 150 supporters at the Ramada Inn and Conference Centre in Cornwall.
Unofficially, McDonell garnered 21,615 votes with Liberal Mark MacDonald a distant second with 8,483 and NDP Elaine MacDonald with 8,078 votes.
Although it was right on the edge, the Liberals lost their majority government by one seat as they now have 53 at Queen's Park. The Conservatives have added 12 seats to the 25 they held when parliament dissolved last spring and the NDP have jumped from 10 to 17 seats. All other parties did not win a seat. McDonell said it was "disappointing" to see Tim Hudak's Conservatives not fair as well across the province as in SD&SG.
"It's unfortunate that we can't look at making some major changes because from what I've heard is people are tired of what's happening and want to see change. I think people in this riding were a little more worried about things like the debt and where Ontario is going."
When discussing why the voters of SD&SG showed their resounding support for the Conservative government but the province overall did not, McDonell said "this seemed to be an election where no one wanted to talk about the realities of where things are going. Maybe it's the rural area where they have a little more respect for the debt and the issues were seeing."
After thanking his family and volunteers for all their support during his campaign, McDonell simply said: "Let's have some fun - the Glengarry way!"
