Conservatives flip 3 seats in Waterloo region, ousting Liberals and Green MPs
Mail-in and special ballots were counted starting Tuesday morning
Three ridings in Waterloo region have flipped from Liberal and Green to Conservative in the federal election.
One of the last ridings to report final results was Kitchener Centre. Results came after 4 p.m. Tuesday and showed Conservative Kelly DeRidder won with 20,217 votes, which was 358 more than Green incumbent Mike Morrice, who had 19,859.
Liberal Brian Adeba came in third with 17,298 votes.
Kitchener Centre was a seat the Greens had hoped to hold onto during a tumultuous election for the party.
In Cambridge, Conservative Connie Cody won the seat, getting 1,474 votes more than Liberal incumbent Bryan May.
May has been the MP for the riding since 2015. He beat Cody in 2021.
"I believe that a lot of the people here in our community were looking for hope and looking for change," Cody told CBC News Tuesday night at her election watch party at Kasturi Restaurant in Cambridge.
"I didn't focus on winning or losing, I focused on going out to our community, going door-to-door, hearing the concerns and meeting the people in this community. I was born and raised here. It's a part of my heart and soul and it's home to me."
She said she knocked on doors and heard from people in the riding that they wanted her to address issues like crime, affordability and housing.
"We've got to make sure that we have safer streets, safer communities and people are deserving of being able to own their own homes," Cody said.
Conservative Matt Strauss won in Kitchener South-Hespeler with 1,028 votes over Liberal incumbent Valerie Bradford.
Strauss said he was "overwhelmed with gratitude" for the people who helped get him elected during his election watch party Tuesday night. He was also very thankful for the people who voted for him in what was a tight race.
"The job was to go around and talk to as many people as possible and hear as many stories as I could and then sort of collate those stories into a consistent narrative about our community and what needs to be done," Strauss told CBC News.
"I'm so happy to have had that opportunity and I'm still thinking about how we're going to push those those concerns and those priorities forward."
In Kitchener-Conestoga, Liberal incumbent Tim Louis held on to win his seat, beating Conservative candidate Doug Treleaven by 522 votes.
This is not unlike other recent elections for the riding. In 2021 and 2019, the race was called the following day and Louis won by just a few hundred votes.
In the four ridings that remained uncalled Tuesday morning, there were thousands of ballots that still need to be counted, either that were mailed in or completed at local returning offices.
These ballots were in envelopes, adding an extra step to the process, and have names of candidates written on them, so required extra scrutiny to make sure they can be counted.
Nationally, the Liberals led by Mark Carney won the election; however, many races across the country remained too close to call as of Tuesday morning so it was unclear if the Liberals would have a minority or a majority government.
Elections Canada said mail-in ballot counting would begin at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday.
Local incumbents win, new MP in Guelph
The first local race to be called on Monday night was Waterloo MP Bardish Chagger, who has served as a Liberal MP since 2015.
In an interview Tuesday morning on CBC Kitchener-Waterloo's The Morning Edition, Chagger told host Craig Norris she was thankful to the people who voted for her, but she also wants to hear from the people who didn't.
"If anyone has any federal issues, that's what a federal MP does. We are there to help you with federal departments and agencies. Reach out, let us help, and I can promise you that I'll do the best that I can," Chagger said.
LISTEN | Liberal MP Bardish Chagger holds on to seat in Waterloo riding:
Conservative incumbents Michael Chong in Wellington-Halton Hills North and John Nater in Perth-Wellington both also won their seats early in the evening.
CBC News reached out to Chong and Nater for comment on their wins. Chong's office said he was "not available to participate in this interview."
In Guelph, Liberal Dominique O'Rourke won the seat, which had been left vacant by Liberal MP Lloyd Longfield, who opted not to run again in this election.
O'Rourke is a sitting city councillor who will now need to resign her seat. Council will declare her seat vacant, then decide how to fill it, either by a byelection or going through the process of appointing someone.
O'Rourke told CBC K-W's The Morning Edition her win was a "very humbling experience" and she feels gratitude to the volunteers who helped her campaign and the people who voted for her.
"The MP is the MP for everyone and I want people to know that I heard them at the door and some of the conversations that I valued the most were people who had a different perspective from mine," she said.
"I would say we have to be able to listen to one another ... we need to build some understanding and that I'm going to be the MP for everyone whether they voted for me or not. And I'm going to work hard for everybody, whether they voted for me or not."
LISTEN | Liberal candidate Dominique O'Rourke wins Guelph riding:
She added she's ready to get to work on bringing the issues of Guelph residents to Ottawa, including a focus on the more than 16,000 manufacturing jobs in the city, plus many more in the surrounding communities.
"There's no question it's going to be the local economy and the national economy," she said of her top issue. "The Conference Board of Canada has said Guelph is the most vulnerable city in the country for tariffs."
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With files from Cameron Mahler