Headline News

HLA elects Sloan, Canada Trudeau

October 23, 2019

Oct. 23, 2019

By Nate Smelle

In a close race between Liberal incumbent Mike Bossio and Conservative candidate Derek Sloan, voters in Hastings – Lennox and Addington have decided to send Sloan to Ottawa to act as their next representative in Parliament. While the race was close, the margin Sloan defeated Bossio by was nowhere near as tight as the 225 votes Bossio unseated the former riding’s Conservative MP Daryl Kramp with in 2015.
While the official results had yet to be announced as of press time Tuesday, with 222 of the 224 polls tallied Sloan was declared the winner. Sloan earned 21,225 votes; Bossio 18,991; David Tough (New Democratic Party) 6,840; Sari Watson (Green) 2,991; and Adam Gray (People’s Party of Canada) 1,274.
Once the results had been announced early Tuesday morning Bancroft This Week spoke with HLA’s new MP Sloan during his election night party at Spud’s Restaurant in Napanee. Expressing his gratitude to the voters who put him in office, Sloan said “I am excited and honoured by the opportunity to be able to serve the riding. I take it very seriously and I just want to let people know that starting tomorrow I am the MP of the riding and they should come to me with their concerns and I will help them the best I can.”
As HLA’s next Member of Parliament, Sloan said his first order of business in office is to get to know the people he will be working with.
“The first thing I am going to do is the first thing I did when I got involved in this campaign, and that is reach out to the municipal leaders – the reeves and mayors – and get their priorities. I will also be reaching out to Mike Bossio and other people who have done this job before and get their advice.”
While Sloan is happy about winning the riding, he said he is also disappointed that he will be working as part of the official opposition to a minority government under Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Trudeau and the Liberals lost 20 seats, but still managed to stay in power with the 157 Liberal seats they retained. Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives gained some ground, picking up 26 seats for a total of 121.
The biggest surprise of the night came from the Bloc Québécois who gained 22 seats for a total of 32. Despite the NDP leader Jagmeet Singh’s surge in popularity in the late stages of the campaign, the New Democrats lost 15 seats but managed to send 24 members back to Ottawa. With talk of a coalition between the Liberals, New Democrats and Greens, Sloan said he will need to find ways to work with MPs from all parties.
“We’ll see in the next couple of days what teamwork forms, but sort of coalition for him is between the different parties and then that will probably dictate our strategy nationally as a party,” said Sloan.
Looking back on his first political campaign, Sloan said he learned a lot about himself and the riding. He said that one of the biggest lessons he learned throughout the campaign was how difficult it is to run for office.
“Running a campaign, serious campaign in a riding like this which has a serious contender is very hard, and it takes a major sacrifice of time and money and investment emotionally,” said Sloan.
“Anybody who decides to do this should be respected, and I respect the other candidates in this race. It’s not easy and I learned a lot about dealing with opening yourself and your private life up to the public, and dealing with people who like you and people who don’t like you. It’s a humbling experience and it’s challenging.”
Bancroft This Week reached out to HLA’s former MP Mike Bossio but did not receive a response by press time.
*Keep an eye out for a feature article on Hastings – Lennox and Addington’s new MP Derek Sloan in the next edition of The Bancroft Times.