Karen Gventer, left, he NDP candidate in BGOS in 2022 Ontario election and Ontario Liberal candidate Selwyn Hicks, right. (submitted photos)
The Liberal and NDP candidates in Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound are expressing some disappointment after their Ontario election results, but wish newly elected Progressive Conservative MPP Rick Byers well at Queen’s Park.
Liberal candidate Selwyn Hicks — who is on a leave from his work as Grey County warden and Deputy Mayor of Hanover — posted a marked improvement for the Liberals in Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound compared to the 2018 election, even as turnout dropped.
With 97.9 per cent of polls reporting, Hicks’ garnered 20.3 per cent of the vote with his named marked on 8,430 ballots. In 2018, the Liberals finished third with 12 per cent ballot support in Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound — 6,041 — with Francesca Dobbyn as their candidate.
Hicks says he accepts the results and from the very beginning he knew what he was getting into.
“This is a very blue area, we have had Conservatives for 30 years and I suppose the people like what they have and they see a platform from the Conservatives that they like and that they want to keep,” says Hicks.
Speaking in a phone conversation with Bayshore Broadcasting News after the race in Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound was decided Thursday night, Hicks says he planned on calling Byers to offer his congratulations and best wishes in his new role.
NDP candidate Karen Gventer says she is disappointed with the results in this year’s provincial election, but not completely surprised.
She saw a big drop in voter support in Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound in the 2022 election compared to her 2018 run, when the NDP finished second in the riding with 24.09 per cent of the vote (11,837 ballots).
This year, Gventer and the NDP finished third in Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound — losing more than half of the votes garnered four years ago and finishing with 13.95 per cent ballot support.
Gventer offered this for Byers as he heads to Queen’s Park to be the riding’s next MPP.
“I hope he listens to his constituents and follows the advice of his constituents,” she says.