Liberal Party candidate Catherine McKenna has defeated New Democratic Party (NDP) candidate and incumbent Paul Dewar in a race for Ottawa Centre that saw McKenna propel to a shocking last-minute win.
McKenna won in a riding considered by many to be an NDP stronghold. She had not led in any riding polls in the run-up to the election and on election day.
McKenna received 32,111 votes while Dewar received 28,988 votes. It was the tightest election in the riding since 1988.
“We knocked on over 100,000 doors, made more than 30,000 calls,” McKenna said at her victory party at the Clocktower Brew Pub on Richmond Road.
“I decided to run for two reasons. One, I knew we could win. A lot of journalists around town owe me a beer,” she said. “I also did this knowing we could get more people engaged and into politics.”
Dewar had won the riding in the last three elections. He was first elected in 2006. The last time a Liberal candidate was voted an MP in the riding was in 2000.
“The work that I’ve been doing has been about trying to make a difference,” Dewar said in his concession speech. “There are so many incredible people in this room that have helped me over the years, and all I can say is thank you.”
“Clearly, across the country, the winds of change were blowing, and that was the case here in Ottawa Centre,” Dewar said.
Ottawa Centre MPP Yasir Naqvi has supported McKenna throughout her campaign and introduced McKenna before she gave her victory speech.
“I’m so inspired by her because that’s exactly the kind of woman we need in Parliament,” Naqvi said. “I look forward to working with her day in, day out to improve the lives of the people in our riding.”
Evan Beaulieu, a commerce student at Carleton University and part of the school’s Young Liberals club, was at McKenna’s victory party.
“We [the Carleton Liberals] definitely helped out, but there have been so many people, so many great volunteers, who played a role in this,” Beaulieu said. “I think her election is great for students, it’s going to open up the economy and create new jobs for students, it’s going to make housing cheaper.”
McKenna said her campaign was about “making sure we have respect for our public servants [and] affordable housing in Ottawa Centre.”
“Politics is about people having conversations about the issues they care about,” she said. “It matters that people believe in democracy. We had everybody on our team from school kids to, well, somebody turned 100 during the campaign.”
During her victory speech, McKenna also thanked Dewar for his nine years of service in Parliament.
“Politics can be more than people just yelling at each other, and we showed that,” McKenna said.
As MP for Ottawa Centre, Dewar had been the foreign affairs critic for the NDP while it was the Official Opposition. He had run to become leader of the NDP in 2012, but lost to Thomas Mulcair.
McKenna has served as a legal advisor to the United Nations on peacekeeping, a lecturer on international affairs at the University of Toronto, and senior counsel on the review of Canada’s military justice system.
Multiple polls showed McKenna closing within 1-2 per cent of Dewar in the final days of the election.
Ottawa Centre had the highest voter turnout of any riding in the country with 82.22 per cent, or 75,332 out of 91,625 eligible voters, casting ballots.
Conservative Party candidate Damian Konstantinakos placed third with 10,943 votes. Green Party candidate Thomas Milroy placed fourth with 2,247 votes.
The Canadian Press, CBC News, and CTV News declared McKenna the winner with only half of 263 polls counted.
The Liberals won 184 seats on Oct. 19 and will form a majority government. Liberal leader Justin Trudeau is set to become the 23rd Prime Minister of Canada, and the second youngest in history at 43 years old. He is the son of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau.
Conservative leader Stephen Harper announced he will resign as party leader. He was re-elected in the riding of Calgary-Heritage.
The Conservatives won 99 seats and will become the Official Opposition. The NDP won 59 fewer seats than it did in 2011, at 44, and sunk to third place.
NDP leader Thomas Mulcair won his riding of Outremont but lost his title as Leader of the Official Opposition. Green Party leader Elizabeth May was re-elected in Saanich-Gulf Islands.
More than 68 per cent of eligible voters across the country voted. It is the highest voter turnout in a federal election since 1993.
