By Yose Cormier
After a 40-day campaign, incumbent Liberal MP Catherine McKenna retained her Ottawa Centre seat, with close to 50% of the votes.
McKenna joins a smaller Liberal government, which saw its number of seats in Parliament shrink to 157 seats, down 29 from the 2015 election.
In Ottawa Centre, NDP candidate Emilie Taman finished second with 29.2% of the vote while Conservative Carol Clemenhagen finished third with 12.6%. Green Party candidate Angela Keller-Herzog finished fourth with 7.3% of the votes.
Across the country, the Conservatives won 121 seats, up 22 from 2015. The Bloc Quebecois had 32 seats, the NDP finished with 24 and the Green Party had three seats. One independent, former Liberal Jody Wilson-Raybould, was elected in British Columbia. No candidates from the People’s Party of Canada were elected.
During her victory speech, McKenna noted that “this was a tough campaign”.
“One of the lessons that is emerging from today’s results is the need for more positive political culture in our country. We all have work to do to bring people together.”
McKenna, who was the Minister of the Environment in the last Parliament, said she was pleased to see that more than two thirds of voters cast their ballots for parties that “believe in and are committed to climate action”.
“I’m so happy that finally, climate change is a top election issue,” she said. “Tonight we celebrate, we earned it, but tomorrow it’s time to get back to the people’s work, making good on the promises we made and giving life to the promises we ran on. And let me tell you, that includes ambitious and practical action on climate change.”