Kingston MP Mark Gerretsen among top Liberal vote winners
Gerretsen's vote total ranks third among Liberal candidates
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KINGSTON — Re-elected Kingston and the Islands MP Mark Gerretsen had one of the Liberal Party’s highest vote totals in last week’s federal election.
Validated results from Elections Canada showed Gerretsen won 48,682 votes, the third-highest vote total among all Liberal candidates in the country.
Those votes accounted for 63.2 per cent of the 77,425 votes cast in the riding.
Conservative candidate Bryan Paterson won 23,592 votes, accounting for 30.6 per cent of votes cast.
New Democratic candidate Daria Juudi-Hope won 3,648 votes, 4.7 per cent of the ballots and Green candidate Fintan Hartnett won 1,071 votes, 1.7 per cent of the ballots cast.
Kingston and the Islands has a population of 134,415 and 106,997 eligible voters for the federal election.
Last Monday’s election was Gerretsen’s fourth federal election win and it was his biggest margin of victory. On election night, Gerretsen acknowledged that this time around he was able to attract voters who previously had supported the New Democratic or Green candidates.
“I do know that there are a lot of progressive voters that may have otherwise would not have voted for me or didn’t in the past and I am extremely grateful for that,” he said.
Aside from Gerretsen, the Liberal Party’s top five vote earners were all from the Ottawa region, including top vote-getter Marie-France LaLonde in Orleans who won 53,146 votes, Yasir Naqvi in Ottawa Centre who won 51,026 votes.
In fourth place, Prime Minister Mark Carney won 46,073 votes in the riding of Nepean and Mona Fortier in Ottawa-Vanier-Gloucester rounded out the top five, winning 45,934 votes.
Canada’s 343 federal ridings have an average population of about 120,000.
The Liberal Party won 169 seats and earned 8,564,200 votes nationally, 43.7 per cent of the ballots cast.
The Conservative Party won 144 seats with 41.3 per cent of the ballots cast nationally, 8,086,051 votes.
In terms of votes, the top five Conservative candidates were all in Alberta and all had vote totals larger than the top Liberal candidate.
elferguson@postmedia.com
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