Brockton Mayor Charlie Bagnato will be the Liberal candidate for Huron-Bruce in the next federal election.
410 party members voted at the Lucknow Community Centre and the majority selected Bagnato as their first choice on the preferential ballot.
However, the party does not release the exact numbers and a declaration was made to consider Bagnato as a unanimous choice.
Bagnato won in a three-way race with Clinton doctor Maarten Bokhout and Exeter educator Deb Homuth.
Bagnato says the first ballot win was a surprise and credits the strong support from people he canvassed in Walkerton, Kincardine, and Port Elgin.
In order to be ready for whenever an election is called, he wants to concentrate more on getting to know people in Huron County, and hopes his two competitors in the nomination race help him out with that.
He hopes an election isn’t called soon because he wants time to recover from the intense nomination campaign and to better connect with communities.
Bagnato says it’s business as usual for him in Brockton.
Bagnato says he’s the mayor until the writ is dropped, he’ll take time off for the campaign, head to Ottawa if he wins, and return as mayor if he doesn’t.
As for the current popularity slump the Liberals are facing in opinion polls, and recent questions about the leadership of Michael Ignatieff, Bagnato isn’t worried.
He says the issues will iron themselves out and admits Liberal popularity is ebbing, but he thinks things will bounce back shortly.
When it comes to local issues, Bagnato wants to focus on the economy.
He says there needs to be more post-secondary training opportunities for people in communities like Wingham and Goderich where manufacturing jobs have been lost.
Bagnato wants them to be able to retrain locally for the green economy and doesn’t want to see them moving away to larger centres like Kitchener and London instead.