WELLINGTON-HALTON HILLS – There will be a familiar face representing Wellington-Halton Hills at Queen’s Park as Progressive-Conservative Ted Arnott has been re-elected.
Arnott received 25,049 votes, over 17,000 more than runner-up NDP candidate Diane Ballantyne. Green Party candidate Ryan Kahro was third with 7,724, followed by Liberal Tom Takacs with 6,920, New Blue's Stephen Kitras with 2,548 and Consensus Ontario Ron Patava with 250.
In the 2018 election, Arnott was elected with 54 per cent of the vote. It was 50.6 this time.
“It’s enormously humbling to receive the support of the good people in this room and the people of Wellington-Halton Hills again,” Arnott said in an interview at his victory party at the Fergus curling club.
“I hope to be deserving of that support and worthy of that support. I want to make people proud of their MPP and my hope is that we can continue to work on all the issues we heard about during the election campaign and continue to make life better in the province.”
Arnott has represented the region as an MPP for 32 years and was most recently the speaker of the house for the most recent provincial government.
He said he was glad to see the PC party hold onto a majority government and believed this happened because people across Ontario are impressed with local candidates but there was also something to be said about stability after a difficult pandemic.
“I think a lot of people are looking at the next provincial parliament as being one that will include many challenges, many difficult decisions,” Arnott said. “The experience the Conservative government has will be put to the test and put to good use.”
NDP candidate Ballantyne said in a phone interview she knew this campaign would be a challenge but couldn’t find words for why the PC government would win another majority.
“Why people would choose a government that didn’t look after our seniors, was so disrespectful to nurses and shuttered our schools and small businesses for longer than anywhere in North America, I don’t understand,” Ballantyne said.
“But that is the way that democracy works and we have to respect what the voters choose.”
Kahro also praised her team for running a good campaign and was proud of what the overall party has done in this election.
“We’re excited for the momentum and base we’ve built for the next election,” Kahro said. “Congratulations to everyone who won and congratulations to Ted and I’m really proud of the whole Wellington-Halton Hills community.”
Tom Takacs, Liberal candidate, said he felt he accomplished something as a last-minute candidate but acknowledged that ultimately hurt the party's chance in the riding.
“Say I was a candidate two, three months prior that would give me enough time to prepare for time off and really spend the quality time with an area that’s very vast and very large. To meet the people, greet the people and go out there and really promote the party,” said Takacs.
He said he was slightly surprised to see party leader Steven Del Duca lose in his hometown of Vaughn and stressed the party needed to get a leader in place again to rebuild the party.
Both the Green and LIberal candidate were hovering at slightly under 7,000 votes and 14 per cent vote share.
Arnott said his first order of business will be going to his constituency office on Friday to compose a letter to premier-elect Doug Ford to inform him of the priorities he believes need to be addressed in Wellington-Halton Hills he’s heard through conversations during the campaign.
- With files from Santana Bellantoni
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