New Democrat MPP-elect France Gélinas has once again convinced the voters of Nickel Belt that she is the best representative for the riding that surrounds the built-up area of Sudbury.
Thursday's election victory represents the sixth consecutive win for Gélinas, who was first elected in 2007. The Nickel Belt riding has been represented continuously by Ontario New Democrats since 1971, when the riding was won by Floyd Laughren.
During her tenure at Queen's Park, Gélinas, a former health-care worker, has served in recent years as the official opposition health care critic. She said she is hoping to be reappointed to that role.
In the last Ontario election in 2022, there were 30,884 voters in Nickel Belt who cast ballots. Elections Ontario said this represented a 45.5-per-cent voter turnout.
In that election, Gélinas won 15,611 votes, which accounted for more than 50 per cent of the vote. Her nearest contender was Progressive Conservative candidate Randy Hazlett with 9,181 votes, which was nearly 30 per cent of the Nickel Belt vote.
Things changed Thursday. Despite fears that the voter turnout would be low, Gélinas was able to win more than 48 per cent of the votes cast, according to Elections Ontario numbers.
With 58 out of 58 polls reporting, Gélinas won 17,123 votes.
Conservative Randy Hazlett won 12,629 votes, while Natalie Labbée of the Liberal Party of Ontario was in a distant third spot with 3,874 votes.
Gélinas celebrated her win at the popular Hanmer pub Cousin Vinny’s Restaurant and Bar, where family members joined her for a late supper in the VIP room while a couple of large flat screen televisions kept up a running tally of provincial results projecting Doug Ford’s win within 10 minutes.
As the polls closed and ballot numbers began showing up on the TV screens, it became apparent that Gélinas was moving ahead of her nearest contender, Conservative candidate Hazlett.
NDP supporters cheered each time fresh results were posted on the TV screens. Gélinas quipped around 9:15 p.m. she was hoping to see the checkmark beside her name, indicating that a win had been projected.
It happened at about 9:22 p.m. Gelinas moved around the room hugging her campaign workers and supporters.
In an interview minutes later, Gélinass said she was pleased with the number of votes in the riding, for her personal win and for the victories celebrated by many other New Democrats across the North, including her close colleague Jamie West in the Sudbury riding.
Gélinas said she thought the voter turnout was going to be low because this was a winter election and she wasn’t certain what to expect.
“It was nerve-wracking through the whole month to this day. I made phone calls all day today,” she said.
She said she encountered many voters who were not aware there was an election and it put her on edge because she wasn’t sure she would be getting the traditionally core support that New Democrats are usually well known for.
“So I was expecting the voter turnout to be pretty low. There is a demographic, older demographic, that tends to be more conservative. They watched TV, they listened to the radio. They knew there was an election,” she said.
“Our core base. Many of them did not know there was an election. So it was nerve wracking till the end.”
Looking at the provincial results, Gélinas said she was happy that her party will again form the official opposition but still said there was no real need for Doug Ford to go to the voters.
“We just spent $200 million of taxpayers money to have a snap election in the middle of the winter so that Ford could secure his job. There was no other reason. We did not need an election,” said Gelinas.
“We have a law in Ontario that says we have fixed-date elections. The election should have been in June of 2026 when everybody knew that there was an election coming.”
Gélinas won reelection Thursday against five contenders:
- James Chretien, representing Libertarian Party;
- Paul Divincenzo, representing the New Blue Party;
- Randy Hazlett, representing the PC Party of Ontario;
- Connie Hill, representing the Green Party of Ontario; and
- Natalie Labbée, representing the Ontario Liberal Party.