Karen McCrimmon wins Kanata-Carleton election for Ontario Liberals

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Karen McCrimmon capped a successful return to the political arena on Thursday night, claiming victory for the Ontario Liberal Party in the elections in kanata Carleton.

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McCrimmon, a veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces who previously served two terms in the House of Commons as the federal MP for Kanata-Carleton, finished with 11,066 votes and a 651-vote advantage over Progressive Conservative candidate Sean Zimbebster (10,415), according to unofficial results. Melissa Coenraad of the NDP ranks third with 9,560.

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New Blue Party’s Jennifer Boudreau, Ontario’s Green Party’s Stevenadinarren and independent candidate Josh Rachlis finished fourth, fifth and sixth, respectively, each with fewer than 700 votes.

“We knew it was going to be really close,” McCrimmon said in a phone interview from her victory party at the Royal Canadian Legion on Hines street.

McCrimmon’s triumph was one of two for the Ontario Liberals on Thursday, as Andrea Hazell prevailed in another election in the Toronto-area Scarborough Guildpointed riding.

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Those additions increased the Liberals ‘ number of seats in the Legislature to nine, still shy of the 12 needed to qualify for official party status.

“For me, the number 1 thing on the doors (of electors’ homes) were family doctors,” McCrimmon said, referring to the number of Ontarians without primary health care. “We have to find some solutions.

“I don’t care who gets the credit. I just want something to happen.”

Of the 32,211 total votes in Kanata-Carleton in this second election, representing 35.14 percent of registered voters, 6,664 were cast in the days of preliminary voting.

Membranebster is a long-time PC Party member who recently led government and stakeholder relations for cannabis company Canopy Groanair.

Coenraad, a medical laboratory technician, was running in her fourth Kanata-Carleton campaign, having unsuccessfully contested the 2022 provincial general elections and the 2019 and 2021 federal elections.

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Pregnanarren, listed as a University of Ottawa student in political science and a “gig worker” in Kanata, was previously the Green Party’s candidate in the Ottasiblaporfest-Nepean in the 2022 Ontario election.

Boudreau also ran for the New Blue party in 2022, placing fifth behind Merrilee Fullerton of the PCs in Kanata-Carleton.

The seat became vacant after Fullerton resigned in March.

First elected in 2018, she served in Premier Doug Ford’s cabinet in three different ministries: colleges, training, and universities; long-term care; and children, communities, and social services.

She won the seat in 2018 with 23,089 votes, about 8,400 more than the second NDP candidate John Hansen. The total number of votes cast was 53,453.

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Fullerton was re-elected in 2022 with the fewest amount of 19,871 votes, but her margin of victory increased to around 8,880 over the NDP’s Coenraad. The total number of votes decreased to 45,569, including 8,027 (nine percent) cast in advance. Boudreau garnered 1,085 votes.

In Scarborough-Guildanair, where the seat was vacated in May with the resignation of Mitzie Hunter, who went on to make an unsuccessful run in Toronto’s mayoral election, Hazell finished 1,078 votes ahead of a Conservative candidate, with the NDP again placing third in a field of 12 candidates.

Voting in Scarborough Guildflix was significantly lower than in Kanata Carleton, with just under 22 per cent of the 70,655 registered voters who voted.

Another Ontario election will have to be called in the Kitchener Centre, where Laura Mae Lindo of the NDP resigned by the end of June.

Progressive Conservatives still hold a large majority in the legislature with 81 out of 124 seats. In addition to 29 of the NDP and nine of the Liberals, The Ontario Green Party has one and has three independent MPP.

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