October 24, 2019 Vol. 19, No. 42
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Green vote triples in riding
Reid returns easily in LanarkFrontenac-Kingston
by Jeff Green and Craig Bakay
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Returning MP Scott Ried at O'Reilly's in Perth on election night
Fresh dispute with Kingston in the offing?
Frontenac County draft 2020 budget
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rontenac County and the City of Kingston remained at odds over a $200,000 in unpaid levies for operating costs for the Fairmount Home long term care facility and Frontenac Paramedic Services, which the county operates with funding support from the city. The city contends that the increases the county charged were higher than the 2% ceiling that the city had set for all affiliated agencies, and they are not obligated to pay. The county contends that the authority to set the FPS and Fair-
mount budgets rests with the county alone and the city must pay. At this point it appears the matter will be settled in court. This week, Frontenac County Council has its first look at the 2020 budget at meetings on Wednesday and Thursday morning (October 23 and 24). At first glance, appears that there may be more friction with the City of Kingston in the new budget cycle as well. The 2020 Frontenac Paramedic Services budget includes an in-
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ong serving Conservative MP Scott Reid was returned to parliament for the 7th time on Monday night, with almost double the vote of his nearest rival, Liberal Kayley Kennedy. Reid received 29,405 votes (48.3%), up a bit in percentage terms, from the 47.87% he received in 2015. Kayley Kennedy drew 14,926 votes (24.5%), which is down from the 33.75% for Liberal Phil Archambault in 2015. Satinka Schilling, for the NDP, received 8,678 votes (14.3%), up very slightly from the 14.1% of the votes for NDP candidate John Fenik in 2015. The biggest change in the riding came from Stephen Kotze for the Greens, who received 6,770 votes (11.1%). In 2015 Anita Payne was selected by 2025 voters (3.5%). Peoples Party candidate Matthew Barton received 1089 votes (1.8%) The turnout among voters in the riding was down at 70.1%, but that percentage may rise when voters who registered on election day are factored in. 72.9% of electors turned out to vote in 2015. The candidates in Frontenac Lennox and Addington held their victory rallies close to home, in Lanark County. Scott Reid was at O’Reilly’s in Perth. It was about 15 minutes past 10 Monday night when CTV News declared Reid elected and the now seven-time MP wasted no time in accepting victory. “I guess we’d better do this before the leaders get up to speak,” he said. Of course, Reid thanked a few people: his campaign staff for all their hard work, O’Reilly’s for opening on a Monday night and “my beautiful wife, Robyn.” Reid also noted that this campaign was one of the most polite he’s ever participated in, commending his opponents for their civility. Even though there were still plenty of races to be decided, Reid saw the writing on the wall, predicting a Liberal minority, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, in his view. “We’ll probably be doing this again in a short while,” he said. “But, a minority government does give private members the opportunity to push the envelope. And I plan on doing just that.” When asked for an example of his agenda, Reid immediately turned to one of his favourite causes — defibrillators in RCMP cruisers. “They (the new Liberal government) will have
to listen to us more closely,” Reid said. “It would cost less than $10 million to put these units in the 5,600 RCMP cruisers across Canada.” Reid said that based on the experience of many police forces that do carry them, (Ottawa, New York State and New Jersey), a life is saved for every 17 units placed. “Since the life of a defibrillator is 10 years, we could save more than 320 lives at a cost of $10 million,” he said. Meanwhile, down the street at Fiddleheads Bar & Grill, there were some long faces amongst Stephen Kotze’s Green supporters. However, Kotze himself, while admitting to “a little disappointment,” was remarkably upbeat for someone who’d just come in fourth. “I said even before tonight that we feel we’ve won,” he said. “We ran a great campaign and did better than ever before. We connected with more people than in past elections. I’m very grateful and humbled by the amount of work my campaign team put in.” As to his future in politics, Kotze had this to say: “Well, I guess I’ll have to stick to the accounting thing. But who knows, I’ve got all these Green signs with my name on them.”
Sloan takes out Bossio in Hastings, Lennox and Addington. In the Hastings Lennox and Addington riding, Derek Sloan of the Conservative Party will be a rookie MP. He defeated one term incumbent Mike Bossio in a race that was close but not as close as the 2015 election, when Bossio took advantage of a Liberal wave to defeat Darryl Kramp, who is now the MPP for the riding. Sloan received 21,225 votes (41.4%) down in percentage terms from Kramp’s 41.9% in 2015. Bossio’s vote dropped more, however, this time receiving 18,991 votes (37%) down from 42.4% in 2015. Dave Tough for the NDP received 6840 votes (13.1%) a similar total to the 12.7% that Betty Bannon received for the NDP in 2015. Green candidate Sari Watson’s 2,991 votes (5.8%), represented a doubling of the vote for the party since Cam Mather polled 2.9% in 2015. Adam Gray from the Peoples Party of Canada was chosen by 1274 voters (2.5%), which is about double the national average for the party.
Small Business WeektM October 21-25 2019 The Frontenac News is joining with small business owners throughout the region by marking Small business week with a special section on pages 7-10 that features 26 innovative businesses from Frontenac County, Addington Highlands and Lanark County.
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