Peggy Revell
They won’t be heading to Queen’s Park but the four candidates who weren’t elected as MPP for Kenora-Rainy River are tempering the disappointment with plans to lay the groundwork for success in the next campaign.
“I guess I was a little bit disappointed,” Progressive Conservative candidate Rod McKay admitted about his second-place finish behind the NDP’s Sarah Campbell, who garnered 10,752 votes last Thursday—some 2,500 ahead of McKay’s 8,314.
“I thought we were going to win,” he remarked. “I was as much disappointed for all the people who worked so hard on my campaign.
“There’s so many of them and they all worked so hard, and everyone was going to feel good about a win.”
But it wasn’t all disappointment. The local PC team was able to bolster its support, vaulting from a third-place finish in the 2007 election with 2,767 votes to second place and 8,314 votes this time around.
“I won’t say we failed because we certainly picked up a lot of votes, and I think we’re really positioned well for next time,” reasoned McKay, noting this upswing was a “pretty huge turnaround.”
McKay said he feels there were a lot of things about the PC platform which were received by voters this campaign.
While there were some similarities between the NDP and PC platforms, McKay said the PCs would have made for a better choice as the party stood a better chance of forming the government, compared to the NDP’s projected number of seats.
“I’m not sure why this riding continually wants to sit in opposition, but we seem to be there again,” he noted.
“But hopefully we’ll change that next time.”
McKay said he would consider running again if he got the nomination nod from local party members.
In the meantime, he will be spending time working with the local PC riding association to lay the groundwork needed for whenever the next election is.
“It’s work that has to be done—and the better it’s done, the better result we’ll get,” he stressed.
“And whether I’m the candidate or someone else is, it’s important work to be done.
“So I’ll focus on that for the next little while.”
Unless an opposition MPP crosses the floor—something McKay hopes doesn’t happen, the Liberal minority government won’t last forever, he noted.
“I think we learned a lot as a group and as a team, and I think we’ll be ready to try it again as soon as the time comes,” McKay reflected.
“I had a good long talk with Tim Hudak this morning [Tuesday], so that was good. We talked about a lot of things.
“So I felt really encouraged after the election.”
Meanwhile, a third-place finish didn’t surprise local Liberal candidate Anthony Leek.
“I think we did okay considering we were undermanned, under-resourced, and under everything basically,” he remarked.
“[So] to see almost 2,200 people voted for us I think is a great start.”
While this election may be over, the minority status of the new Liberal government under Premier Dalton McGuinty means there could be another election “in a very short time,” added Leek, meaning local Liberals will be making sure they’re ready to go.
“We’re in this for the long run and we’re going to build,” he pledged. “And I’m not going anywhere as far as I know, and we’re going to plan and build and get people together.
“It’s not necessarily a good day to be a Liberal in terms of being in the north, but we’re going to build,” Leek vowed.
“I’m a very positive individual and enthusiastic and passionate, and we’re going to work very hard so that we can bring back the middle ground when it comes to Kenora-Rainy River.”
That the Liberal party fell just one seat short of a majority also shows how every riding matters, Leek said.
“I’d like to thank everybody for their support, especially the 2,200 people who decided to vote for me and to vote for positive change,” he noted.
“Unfortunately, we didn’t get ’em this time but we’re going to work very hard so that we can move forward together.”
Also pledging to keep the campaigning is newcomer Charmaine Romaniuk, with the fledgling Northern Ontario Heritage Party.
As a new candidate with a new party, she earned 219 votes this election—or one percent of the total vote.
“I’m not really surprised, and I know next time it will be way better,” said Romaniuk, noting that unlike other candidates, she was a late-comer to the race and only was able to get in three weeks of campaigning.
“I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t get my message out there,” she admitted.
“I’m not necessarily surprised by the vote, just because I had such little time to actually do any real campaigning like I liked to do.”
Right now the party will be going into “research mode,” she explained, particularly researching First Nation populations and the needs of northern communities.
“There’s going to definitely be an aboriginal perspective next round with the campaign,” she noted.
And before the next election comes around, Romaniuk said she will be spending that time just getting the NOHP’s name out there.
“I plan on doing some forums about the NOHP so that people are actually aware that we’re out there and we’re for the people in Northern Ontario.
“That’s pretty much the game plan.”
Green Party candidate Jo Jo Holiday, who came fourth with 385 votes, could not be reached for comment prior to press time.
