NDP candidate Paul Dewar enters the Sala San Marco on Preston Street followed by his youngest son Jordan and wife Julia Sneyd after clinching a victory in his Ottawa Centre riding.
After a day on which Canadian voters granted the Conservatives a new minority government, Ottawa Centre residents gave NDP incumbent Paul Dewar an easy second victory.
The NDP MP soared into the win with a comfortable lead over his competitors and about 40 per cent of the riding’s total votes.
With all the polls tabulated, Elections Canada reported that Dewar won the riding in Tuesday’s general election with 25,347 votes.
“Whether you voted for me or you voted for one of the other candidates, my heartfelt thanks to all of you,” Dewar said with a wide grin.
Liberal candidate Penny Collenette ended up a distant second with 16,634 votes. And although Conservative candidate Brian McGarry fared better than many had originally expected, he was only able to garner 15,063 votes. The Green’s Jen Hunter was fourth with 6,348 votes.
Ottawa Centre’s voter turnout again bucked the national trend with 71.5 per cent of voters casting ballots. Nationally, turnout was a dismally historic low of about 57 per cent.
Collenette’s camp met at the Sheraton Ottawa Hotel to celebrate a hard-fought battle — a battle she says she was in to win.
“Honestly, it’s not the result I was expecting,” she said. “I was disappointed because I thought we had a chance given the history of the riding.”
| Ottawa Centre results 267 of 276 polls |
| Paul Dewar (NDP) 25,347 Penny Collenette (Liberal) 16,634 Brian McGarry (Conservative) 15,063 Jen Hunter (Green) 6,348 John Akpata (Radical Marijuana) 378 Pierre Soublière (Marxist Leninist) 93 Turnout: 71.5%
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Liberal Mac Harb held the riding from 1988 until 2003.
By the time Dewar – son of the late former Ottawa mayor Marion Dewar — walked triumphantly into his victory party at Preston Street’s Sala San Marco banquet hall, the crowd of orange-clad supporters was 300 strong.
McGarry said it is a tough riding to be in if you’re a Tory.
“Dewar is a bit of a dynasty here," said the Conservative candidate.
As they were watching the elections results on CTV, McGarry supporters were clearly rattled their candidate had lost and their party had lost its bid for a majority government.
Scott Proudfoot, who was among the Conservatives supporters, was not surprised by the results and stayed positive for the new Conservative government.
"We have a strong minority, I think we do have an effective mandate to govern," he said.
During his victory speech, Dewar vowed to fight for the homeless, for immigrants, for the community and for the environment, all issues he began addressing during his first term in Parliament.
“This was a campaign about issues and there’s work to do,” he said.
Dewar has been the MP for Ottawa Centre since 2006, when he inherited the riding from former NDP leader Ed Broadbent. In the 2006 election, Dewar won the riding by about 5,000 votes.
Green Party candidate Jen Hunter took home 6,348 votes, or about 9.9 per cent of the votes. This is a slight drop from their previous performance in the 2006 election, where the Green’s David Chernushenko won 10.2 per cent of the riding’s votes.
"We have a different candidate this time who is not quite as well known in the community", said Anouk Hoedeman, the Green’s communications director for Ottawa Centre.
She also said some Green supporters voted strategically for the Liberals or the NDP in order to block the Conservative Party.
"I think strategic voting was an issue in this riding," she said. "Nationally, the percentage of the Green Party is up by 15 per cent," Hoedman said.
Collenette says Ottawa is a gem worth fighting for, and she’s proud to be a female candidate.
She told the crowd of about 200 that she hopes one half of all candidates will be women by the time the next election rolls around. Females accounted for 27 per cent of candidates this vote.
Nic Moyer, Collenette’s campaign manager, says they didn’t win the seat because the national campaign didn’t go their way.
“Ottawa Centre residents got pulled into a national political trend,” he said. “We got hurt from the result of a weak national campaign.”
However, he says that good ideas came out of this effort and he expects the local team will stick with Collenette as their leader the next time Canadians go to the polls.
As for Collenette, she says she’ll take it as it comes.
“There’s a lot of people who want to talk to me.”
Marxist-Leninist Pierre Soublière garnered 93 votes and Radical Marijuana contender John Akpata attracted 378 votes, accounting for 0.1 and 0.6 per cent, respectively.