Liberals Win Minority as Oxford and our Surrounding Region Stays Blue

Monday, 21 October 2019 23:27

The Liberals and Justin Trudeau have won a minority Government. Locally it was all blue for voters in Oxford, Haldimand Norfolk, Brant-Brantford and Perth Wellington.

OXFORD COUNTY - The Liberals and Justin Trudeau have won a minority Government.

Trudeau won a close race, falling just shy of the 170 seats he needed to win a majority Government. At the time of this reporting Trudeau's Liberals have won 157 seats, with the Conservatives winning 121 seats.

Locally The residents of Oxford County have spoken and they have re-elected Conservative MP Dave Mackenzie for another term. Mackenzie has served as the MP for this riding since 2004. He wanted to thank everyone for continuing to have faith in him after 15 years.

"Certainly means a great deal to me and not just for me but for the people who support me and work for me in this riding, my consistency staff, who are with me here tonight. Having the faith of the people here in the County is pretty awesome for me, as you mentioned, I have been in this job for 15 years, and 30 years in policing and I think the community knows me and I respect them and I think they respect me."

Mackenzie talks about the biggest thing people brought up to him during the election.

"They wanted to see honesty and integrity but you are looking at Oxford and you look at what our numbers are, I think that tells you that they are people who understand, I mean these are folks that are hard working, pay their taxes and don't want to see their money squandered and don't want to see bad, bad issues. We had people here tonight ask me about the Admiral Norman case, because it affects them and we have seen to much of that. Hopefully these numbers change, but I have to be realistic and say, if they don't and we go back and it's a Liberal minority and they work with the NDP. I was there when Stephen Harper had a minority and he didn't team up with anybody, we didn't have a coalition, he worked and Jack Layton was the leader of the opposition in those days and he was an honest broker, but I think we will see the Liberals team up with the NDP and they will spend a lot of money."

Mackenzie had his entire family with him on Monday night, including his children, grand children and spouses. His daughter, Deb Tait is a Woodstock City Councillor and his son has just retired as a police officer.

Mackenzie's biggest challenger came from the NDP's Matthew Chambers who finished a distant second.

Elsewhere in the region, Conservative Diane Finley was re-elected in Haldimand Norfolk, Conservative Phil McColeman was re-elected in Brant, Brantford and Incumbent Conservative John Nader won in Perth-Wellington.