SDSG – In his victory speech Monday night, Conservative MP Guy Lauzon said the 78 day campaign was actually the merging of two battles.
Roughly 70 supporters were at the Cornwall Ramada to see the votes come in and hear Lauzon take the podium for his fifth election victory in Stormont-Dundas-South Glengarry.
The Conservative incumbent had 27,041 votes or 51 per cent of the vote while his main challenger, Liberal Bernadette Clement, had 20,450 votes or 38.6 per cent.
“It was a successful campaign, but it wasn’t the only campaign that Frances and I were under,” Lauzon said, his voice cracking.
Lauzon said he had been in the election battle but also the culmination of his wife’s \four-month cancer battle for Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. Her final chemotherapy treatment is tomorrow (Tuesday) – the news came with cheers from the crowd.
“Folks, if you think we had a victory today we’re going to have a hell of a lot bigger victory over this.”
The victory is bittersweet in the political sphere. “That’s disappointing (the Liberal majority) because lot of great colleague have not been re-elected and that hurts. But democracy speaks and the electorate is always right,” Lauzon said in a interview with reporters in the lobby before making his victory speech.
The MP also lauded the campaigns of his challengers – Clement, Burger and Kennedy. “Bernadette ran a very formidable campaign and upped their game from the last time for sure,” Lauzon said. “We weren’t taking anything for granted. We knew we were in tough, we fought hard and got the results that we wanted.”
Lauzon doesn’t agree the days of money coming into the riding will be numbered with a Conservative MP with a Liberal majority government. “That’s not the case because the first 18 months of my mandate I was an opposition member with not the experience I have today. Opposition members can do well for the ridings because we can hold the government’s feet to the fire…I think we still have some good things coming to the riding,” he said.
Lauzon said he is going to “savour the victory” and rest for the next couple days. “Get a little rest maybe, and make some decisions very far into the future,” Lauzon said.
New Democrat Patrick Burger had 4,333 votes and Green Party Elaine Kennedy had 1,192.
Voter turnout in SDSG was just over 67 per cent.
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