The recent provincial election turned out to be bittersweet for Orléans MPP-elect Stephen Blais and local Liberal supporters. Although Blais managed to easily retain his seat by more than 10,000 votes and the Liberal Party regained official status for the first time since the 2018 election, both victories were overshadowed by the fact that Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie failed to win in Mississauga, once again throwing the party’s leadership into question despite her election night vow to stay on.

As for Blais, he has never been in a stronger position. The 30,482 votes he received is the most votes ever received by a candidate of any party in the riding previoulsy, and his margin of victory of 10,614 votes, is second only to his predecessor Marie-France Lalonde who won by 11,836 votes in the 2014 General Election.

Progressive Conservative hopeful Stéphan Plourde finished a distant second to Blais with 19,868 votes. NDP candidate Matthew Sévigny received 3,371 votes. The Green Party’s Michelle Petersen got 1,398 votes, while the rest were split between New Blue candidate Patricia Hooper (641 votes), Libertarian Ken Lewis (233 votes) and independent candidates Arabella Vida (138 votes) and Burthomley Douzable (130 votes).

A total of 56,123 people cast a ballot in this year’s provincial election, or 47.7 per cent of the total eligible voters in Orléans, which was slightly higher than the 46.9 per cent who voted in the 2022 election.

Now that he’s been re-elected with a solid majority, Blais says he plans to continue to fighto have the province upload responsibility for Hwy. 174 without any strings attached.

During his victory speech, Blais took a direct shot at his Conservative opponent for falsely claiming he wanted to turn Hwy. 174 into a toll road.

“They ran a campaign of lies. A campaign of misdirection and of falsity,” said Blais. “Orléans residents chose honesty. They chose integrity and they showed that Trump style politics does not belong in Ontario. It certainly doesn’t belong in Orléans and the voters said so with a clear voice tonight.”

The three-term MPP went on to address his priorities in the weeks and months ahead.

“We need doctors here in Orleans and we’re going to fight tooth and nail to make sure that happens,” said Blais. “We’re going to make sure we get the new schools built for our growing community. We’re going to make sure those schools have the best teachers and educational assistants and the resources necessary for our kids. And we’re going to try to make sure that he spends our tax dollars responsibly.”

Blais was among four Liberal MPPs who were re-elected in the National Capital region. The others were John Fraser in Ottawa South, Lucie Collard in Vanier and Karen McCrimmon in Kanata South.

Elsewhere, Tyler Watt managed to switch Nepean from Conservative blue to Liberal red for the first time since 1998. The riding was previously held by John Baird and Lisa McLeod who decided not to run after repre-senting the riding for six consecutive terms.

Ottawa Centre remained NDP with the election of former city councillor Catherine McKenney, who will replaces the outgoing Joel Harden in the provincial legislature, and NDP MPP Chandra Pasma was re-elected in Ottawa West - Nepean.

Although the Liberals managed to pick up five seats in the legislature, they still fell well short of the NDP in the battle to become the Official Opposition, a position they haven’t held since 2018. The NDP captured 27 seats, 13 more than the Liberals.