Ernie Hardeman, the longest-serving MPP in Oxford’s history, is headed back to Queen’s Park for an eighth term after winning his Woodstock-area riding with more than double the vote of his nearest rival.
The 74-year-old Progressive Conservative, a cabinet minister in two governments book-ending his 27 years in provincial politics, Hardeman ran away on the early returns and built up a commanding lead over Lindsay Wilson of the NDP that only grew as the night progressed.
“I’m very pleased and enthusiastic about being able to carry on with my work at Queen’s Park,” said Hardeman, as he celebrated the victory in Woodstock.
“It was not totally unexpected, but at the same time I’m never sure until the numbers come in,” he said.
Hardeman’s solid showing came almost exactly 27 years to the day the former civic politician and businessperson first cut his teeth in Ontario politics, defeating New Democrat Kimble Sutherland to win the seat for the Mike Harris-led Tories in 1995.
Home to a vast dairy belt, the largely rural Oxford riding has been one of the most small-c conservation districts in Ontario for years. But the riding also takes in a city with one of the youngest populations in the region, Woodstock, and has seen its manufacturing muscle grow through two giant auto assembly plants, Toyota’s Woodstock factory and General Motors’ CAMI plant that is on the leading edge of the regional auto industry’s switch to electric vehicles from gas-powered ones.
An agriculture minister to both Harris and Doug Ford in the last government, Hardeman was shuffled out of Ford’s cabinet a year ago, surprising many, in a shake-up to put a new face on Ford’s inner circle heading into an election year.
Being dropped from cabinet apparently did nothing to take the shine off Hardeman Thursday night, however.
Notable in the race was that the Liberals, still recovering from their Ontario drubbing at the polls four years ago, ran a distant third behind the NDP, with little more than half the voter support of that party.
The NDP has won the riding only once, in 1990. The Liberals last won it 25 years ago.
Wilson said she was proud of her NDP campaign and would likely run again.
“We did everything that was within our capacity. We knocked on thousands of doors and we got lots of volunteers involved,” she said.
With 65 of 65 polls reporting
Cheryle Baker, Green: 2,097
Ernie Hardeman, PC*: 22,166
Mary Holmes, Liberal: 5,459
Connie Oldenburger, New Blue: 1,517
Karl Toews, Ontario Party: 3,579
Lindsay Wilson, NDP: 9,504
*MPP in last legislature