Simcoe County Votes Blue

Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative Party will form the next provincial government. A clear winner early on, Ford’s party will form a majority government after having won well over the required 63 seats barely an hour after polls closed. Ford Nation ended the night with 76 seats. Five of those seats were in the Simcoe County area, with PC candidates being elected in ridings Barrie-Innisfil, Barrie-Springwater-Oro Medonte, Simcoe-Grey, Simcoe North, and York-Simcoe.

“They wanted change.”

Doug Downey of BSOM was first to be declared winner among the local candidates, not long after his party leader got the win. He tells our newsroom “people were telling me about the angst and frustration they had with the current government, and they really felt like they were hitting a wall. They wanted change. This was a message of change, in so many ways.”

“Never Too Young To Make a Difference.”

Andrea Khanjin took the Barrie-Innisfil riding for the PC party, and had beat out incumbent Liberal Ann Hoggarth by over 15,000 votes early in the evening.

“it’s a new Ontario” says @Andrea_Khanjin #onpoli #OnElxn pic.twitter.com/Cg3uDWwBYh

— 107.5 Kool Fm News (@KOOLFMNEWS) June 8, 2018

Khanjin says “gone are the days that you work hard and can’t get ahead, here come the days of tomorrow where its going to be a bit easier, work hard and you will get ahead.” On the PC party platform Khanjin says we need change, “we need an actual hope and I believe this platform gives us that.”

“Either One of them Would Make a Better Leader”

Outgoing Barrie MPP Ann Hoggarth let it be known her distaste for Ontario’s newest Premier, and his kin.

On the blue wave, @AnnHoggarth4BI says “anything to do with the [@fordnation] Ford family concerns me, quite frankly.” #onpoli #ONelxn pic.twitter.com/YVQZarjjvT

— 107.5 Kool Fm News (@KOOLFMNEWS) June 8, 2018

Hoggart says everything to do with [the Dough Ford] family concerns me quite frankly, it’s very disappointing that voters think that Doug Ford is a better candidate as Premier than our leader Kathleen Wynne, or Andrea Howrath, either one of them would make a better leader and has better character.”

Hoggarth calls the election “unfortunate” saying, “we had no Liberal Candidates involved in scandals all through the campaign, obviously people don’t care about the character of candidates anymore and I think that is a sad commentary on Ontario. We were all high and mighty when Donald Trump got elected and we thought something like that could never happen in Canada, well it has.”

Conservative Jill Dunlop has claimed her father’s former riding of Simcoe North, while incumbent PC Jim Wilson isn’t going anywhere from his Simcoe Grey riding.

I want to thank the voters of Simcoe-Grey for placing your faith in me. I’m speaking to reporters now about tonight’s results. pic.twitter.com/FtueRY86Bv

— Jim Wilson (@jimwilson2018) June 8, 2018

The final tally was slow to come from some ridings, especially that of York-Simcoe, after a series of Hold and Secure orders affected several schools serving as polling station. Conservative Caroline Mulroney qas declared winner around midnight, after the final poll in York-Simcoe closed at 11:25.

Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne says she is in the process of securing an interim party leader, as she is stepping down as head of a party now wondering about its own future. The Ontario Liberals’ 7 seat count at the end of the night threatens its official party status, which means the party could lose significant public funding.

Province-wide, the PC Party of Ontario claimed 76 seats in the Ontario Legislature, while the NDP will be the official opposition with 39 seats.  The Green Party of Ontario won its first seat at Queen’s Park, with party leader Mike Schreiner winning his Guelph riding.