Duncan three-peat in SDG

CORNWALL – Eric Duncan has won his third term as Member of Parliament for the newly-expanded riding of Stormont-Dundas-Glengarry.

Duncan, 37, will join an expanded Conservative Party caucus of 144 MPs, forming the official opposition to the Liberal minority government.

“It’s wonderful to see the results locally but a little bit disappointing nationally,” said Duncan, addressing a crowd of about 90 supporters at his victory party Monday night (April 28.) “The ‘Big Blue Machine’ is alive and well in the new riding of SDG. I very sincerely appreciate the trust that the people of SDG have put in me.”

This is the eighth win in a row for local Conservatives since the party was formed by the merger of the Progressive Conservative and Canadian Alliance parties in 2003. Duncan took over for retiring MP Guy Lauzon in the 2019 election.

Duncan told reporters after his victory speech that there were outside factors involved with his party not winning a minority or majority government.

“A lot of factors changed things and it really got upended in the last couple months in a few different ways,” he explained. “I think our message was solid, I think our ideas were solid. It was just I think Canadians’ comfort of going with a government that they knew.”

When asked about the 20 point loss in the polls to finishing second place nationally, Duncan said that he looked at the results differently.

“From the last election, we’ve been up in the popular vote as well,” he said. “You run these races to come first in the number of seats.”

Duncan said he supported Poilievre’s continued leadership of the Conservative Party.

“Overall, I don’t pin this on Pierre. I pin this on the unpredictability of the last few months have been. I don’t place this all on Pierre. Nobody wanted to pull out a win more than Pierre and I am sure he is just as disappointed by this as everyone else is.”

Poilievre was declared defeated in his riding of Carleton by Liberal challenger Bruce Fanjoy. That riding had extensive delays in ballot counting, in part because it was subject to a protest campaign that saw 83 independent candidates join the race, leading to a 91 candidate ballot. Counting was halted early Tuesday morning with two polls left to report. Counting resumed at 9:30 a.m. As of publication deadline, Fanjoy led Poilievre by nearly 4,000 votes and had 50.1 per cent of the popular vote – with two advanced polls remaining to report.

Duncan said it was too soon to talk about a possible replacement for Poilievre or if he was interested in seeking the party leadership.

With 277 out of 278 polls returned April 29, Duncan led Liberal challenger Sarah Good by 11,069 votes. He won 56.5 per cent of the popular vote, receiving 37,023 votes. Good earned 39.6 per cent of the vote, or 25,954 votes. Following the national trend, NDP support in the riding fell by three-quarters from 2021. That party’s candidate, Mario Leclerc received 2.5 per cent of the popular vote, or 1,624 votes. The Green Party’s Gordon Kubanek saw his party’s support cut in half, falling to just one per cent, or 667 votes. Libertarian Karl MacKinnon received just 0.4 per cent of the vote, or 266 votes in the riding.

The SDG riding was expanded in 2024 to include North Glengarry Township.

Duncan’s vote share expanded in SDG this election. Compared to redistributed riding results from the 2021 election, adding in North Glengarry’s votes that election, Duncan grew the Conservative vote by over 5,000 votes.

He told journalists that the increased competition this election was good.

“I am proud of the campaign I’ve run. We give it 110 per cent, the full throttle run every time, but I will say the Liberals did run an impressive local campaign – I give them credit on that. It’s always good when there’s healthy competition – that’s a good thing for local democracy. But I am also very proud of the numbers that we’ve got.”
He continued that while he was never worried about the local election results, he did have to work harder.

“That doesn’t change the work ethic – I don’t get panicked, you leave everything on the table. It was motivating to see that there was an active Liberal campaign, which isn’t always the case. It does help you pick up a step and keep going.”

Voter turnout in SDG increased by five percent to 67.62 per cent according to Elections Canada.

Around the region…

In Leeds-Grenville-Thousand Islands-Rideau Lakes, Conservative Michael Barrett won his fourth consecutive term, defeating perennial Liberal challenger Lorna Jean Edmonds by nearly 4,000 votes. Barrett, who first was elected in 2018 after the death of MP Gord Brown, earned 50.2 per cent of the vote, or 33,141 votes. Edmonds, who had just run as the provincial Liberal candidate two months ago, received 44.2 per cent of the vote, or 29,198 votes.
The NDP candidate Paul Lancione saw his party’s support cut by three-quarters, dropping to 2,315 votes or 3.5 per cent of the vote. Green Party’s Randi Ramdeen received just 774 votes or 1.2 per cent, while the People’s Party of Canada candidate Hailey Simpson received 589 votes (0.9 per cent).

In Prescott-Russell-Cumberland, Liberal candidate Giovanna Mingarelli won the riding by a nearly 10,000 vote margin over Conservative Julie Séguin. Mingarelli took over the riding from Liberal MP Francis Drouin, who had held the riding for three terms.

Nationally, Liberal leader Mark Carney won his seat in Nepean, earning two-thirds of the vote over Conservative challenger Barbara Bal. As previously written, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre trailed in his riding of Carleton by nearly 4,000 votes and was expected to be defeated when final poll returns are issued. NDP leader Jagmeet Singh finished third in his Burnaby, BC riding – in his concession speech, he also announced he was resigning as party leader. Green Party co-leader Elizabeth May won her seat of Saanich-Gulf Islands, while her co-leader counterpart Jonathan Pedneault lost in the Montréal riding of Outremont. Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet won his riding of Beloeil-Chambly.

As of publication deadline, the Liberals won 168 seats and will form a minority government. The Conservatives will form the Official opposition with 144 seats. The BQ hold the balance of power in the House of Commons with 23 seats. The NDP failed to earn enough seats for official party status (12), electing only seven MPs. The Green Party elected only one MP, May.

The Liberals increased their seat count and popular vote. Over 8.3 million voters, or 43.5 per cent supported the Liberals. The Conservatives also saw increases in the popular vote. Over 7.9 million supported the Conservatives at the ballot box, or 41.4 per cent. Voter turnout was up five per cent to 67.33 per cent with 19.2 million voters casting a ballot.