With the dust barely settled on Thursday’s provincial election, Sam Oosterhoff was back in his constituency office on Friday morning getting back to business.
“I just finished writing a letter to the Premier this morning, laying out the local priorities that I've been hearing and what we're going to be working on for the next four years.”
Those priorities included everything from protecting Canadian jobs from the effects of the tariffs on Canadian good being brought in from south of the border by the Trump administration, healthcare, expansion of the QEW between Burlington and St. Catharines, and investments in the skilled trades.
Oosterhoff kept Niagara West Tory blue, re-capturing one of the safest, if not the safest electoral districts for the Progressive Conservative Party in the province.
With 22,316 votes Oosterhoff captured 50.23 per cent of the ballots cast Thursday, finishing with a slightly more than double the number for runner-up Shauna Boyle of the Liberals. Boyle pulled in 11,019 votes (24.96 per cent). NDP candidate and former Pelham Mayor Dave Augustyn was a distant third with 7,312 votes (16.46 per cent), and the Green Party’s Mark Harrison was fourth with 2,009 votes (4.52 per cent). The field was rounded out by Aaron Albano of the New Blue Party (678), Aaron Allison of the Ontario Party (629) Libertarian. Stefanos Karatopis (326), and Populist Party of Ontario leader Jim Torma (671).
While Niagara West might be considered a safe bet for Doug Ford’s Conservatives, Oosterhoff said he didn’t look at it that way.
“You should never take anything for granted,” he said. “We knocked a lot of doors, talked to a lot of people, and we had a great local machine.”
Voter turnout in Niagara West was 54.76 per cent versus the province-wide total turnout of 45.4 per cent. This didn’t surprise Oosterhoff.
“I do know we were, in the last election, the third-highest voter turnout in the province,” he said. “So, I wouldn't be surprised if we were up there again this campaign.”
Heading into election day, 338Canada had all four Niagara districts leaning toward the PCs but that didn’t come to pass. Niagara stuck with the status quo, returning its three NDP MPPs – Jennie Stevens (St. Catharines), Wayne Gates (Niagara Falls) and Jeff Burch (St. Catharines).
“At the end of the day, voters get to go into the ballot booth, and [opinion] polls vote just as often as dogs,” Oosterhoff said. “It’s coming down to people, and when people go into that ballot booth and they have the option to check off who they'll check off, they're exercising their democratic right.”
Runner-up Boyle said while she was not surprised by the results, “but disappointed that the people in my riding keep voting for a representative that doesn't take accountability for his party and keeps blaming the Liberals and the NDP for the past mistakes.”
She added that the short campaign with fewer advance polls didn’t help. Ford’s calling a snap election a year and a half early gave her little time to prepare.
“With the 18 months I had planned to get around my riding, then it would have been different,” she said. “Not just [with] advanced polls, but proper planning and training for the poll workers.”
She added that it may be time to allow for online voting.
“We live in a technological environment,” she said.