From blue to orange

NDP candidate Catherine Fife has won the Kitchener-Waterloo byelection, crushing the Conservative and Liberal candidates by an extensive margin.

Here are the official results from Elections Ontario:

Fife – NDP – 18559
Tracey Weiler – Conservatives – 14823
Eric Davis – Liberals – 11204
Stacey Danckert – Green – 1516

The NDP win means the Liberals did not get their majority, but they
were able to hold Vaughan, the riding vacated by former finance minister Greg Sorbara, with Steven Del Duca taking 51 per cent of the popular vote to easily defeat Conservative Tony Genco. The NDP was a distant third there.

However, Kitchener-Waterloo turned into a close three-way race, with New Democrat Fife emerging to win. She thanked her supporters telling them they were all part of history.  The local school board chairperson says the campaign gained momentum from the moment the writ was dropped.

Fife ended up with just under 40 per cent of the vote, followed by Weiler at 31.8 per cent and Davis at 24 per cent.

During her concession speech, Weiler said her campaign did everything they could and she wanted everyone to celebrate a hard fought campaign. Weiler said that the minority Liberal government is clearly out of touch. She plans to continue working with the PC party to hold the government to account.

Davis congratulated Fife on the win. He also thanked his wife, volunteers and the many Liberal caucus members who came to support him.  A group that included Health Minister Deb Matthews, Minister for Training Colleges & Universities, Glen Murray, and Ministry of Economic Development and Innovation, Brad Duguid.

Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath says the Fife win is a signal that Ontarians are ready for positive change. “I think Mr. McGuinty played a real cynical game of politics here and he lost.” said Horwath.

Premier McGuinty engineered the byelection by appointing veteran Progressive Conservative Elizabeth Witmer to a $188,000-a-year post as head of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board. Witmer represented the riding of Kitchener-Waterloo for 22 years.

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