The Liberals won the election with another minority.  Of course special ballots (almost a million votes – mail in or well in advance) won’t be counted until Tuesday so the results for some seats won’t be known for a while.  But, as predicted by polls, local Conservative incumbent MP Philip Lawrence did win – see the numbers below. Notable results are in the PPC and Green Party.  Maxime Bernier’s party (PPC) did better although he personally came nowhere close to winning his seat – it was won by a Conservative.  And the Green vote was down with their leader losing badly although they still won 2 seats (down 1). BQ (+2) and NDP (+1) did about the same as in… Read complete articleLiberals win minority – Local MP returned

A group of local organizations concerned about sustainability have announced that they will be organizing an all-Candidates meeting.  Chambers of Commerce from Northumberland are organizing one but it’s just for members so it’s good that the sustainability group are organizing this event which is open to everyone.  It will be via Zoom but will allow Q and A.  All Candidates have confirmed.  The idea is to get the position of all candidates – and presumably their parties – on where they stand on “the climate crisis, sustainable communities, and the human right to a healthy environment”.  To participate, you must register via Event Brite although tickets are free.  When you register, you get an email with a link to the… Read complete articleAll-Candidates Meeting

After reports that Trudeau would visit a Café in Cobourg this afternoon at 5:45 pm, it was finally announced that he would be at the Black Cat at 4 King West at 6:45 pm.  He finally arrived closer to 8:00 pm to be greeted by about 130 supporters and a dozen very noisy demonstrators.  The venue was the patio of the Black Cat and all spectators were asked to wear masks but the demonstrators did not.   A PA system was provided but a good part of the time, this did not help Justin get his message out.  It’s not apparent how being rude and shouting down a speech helps the cause of the anti-mask and anti-vax’ers.  But we do have… Read complete articleTrudeau Campaigning in Cobourg

With an election now officially called for September 20, most news coverage will be focused on that event.  Cobourg is in the Northumberland Peterborough South Riding and is currently represented by MP Philip Lawrence who is a member of the Conservative Party.  He will be running for the Conservatives and other parties will be competing.  Already, the Liberal Party has nominated Alison Lester as their Candidate, the People’s Party has nominated Nathan Lang but the NDP and Green Party have not yet nominated candidates.  To keep everyone informed, Cobourg News Blog will be providing regular updates and there is also a factual non-partisan page – see links below.  Blog Posts will report on events such as new nominations and any… Read complete articleElection Information for Cobourg

In the middle of this Covid-19 crisis, there has been continual talk of the performance of Federal and Provincial politicians with particular speculation about the possibility of a Federal election because of the minority Government.  The current Federal MP for Northumberland Peterborough South (NPS) is Conservative Philip Lawrence and if a federal election were to be held, many have assumed that he would be running against the previous incumbent, Liberal Kim Rudd.  But today, Kim announced that because of health reasons, she would not be running again.  Given the possibility of an election at any time, that means the Liberal Party will need to find a candidate quickly.  Kim’s announcement today did not discuss who might run in her place… Read complete articleAnnouncement re Federal MP candidate

Around 1:20 am on the day after election day, results indicated that Justin Trudeau would be leading a minority Government with 156 seats against the Conservatives with 122.  Since that was fewer Liberal seats than in the last parliament, it meant that some Liberal MPs lost their seats and our local Riding MP Kim Rudd was one of them.  She lost to Conservative Philip Lawrence.  The Liberals planned to celebrate a win at a hall in Port Hope but it didn’t happen – Kim didn’t show by 11:10 so I left to join the Conservatives who were having a party.  One of those celebrating was MPP David Piccini – see the photo.  The numbers Tuesday morning were as shown below. … Read complete articleLocal Riding has a new M.P.

About 70 people came to the all-candidates debate at the Cobourg Lions Community Centre last night.  Hosted by Retired Teachers Ontario, all five candidates responded to 16 questions as well as giving opening and closing statements.  Moderated by York Bell-Smith with time limits enforced, it was orderly and informative since the questions covered a good range of concerns.  If you haven’t already heard, the Candidates are: Liberal Kim Rudd – incumbent M.P.; Conservative  Philip Lawrence; Green Party Jeff Wheeldon; NDP Mallory MacDonald and People’s Party of Canada (PPC) Frank Vaughan.  See the links below for more on these candidates.  After the opening statements, each candidate was asked to respond to three questions posed by the Retired Teachers; these focused on… Read complete articleKey Questions Raised at All-Candidates Meeting

With short notice to most of us, Justin Trudeau came to Cobourg today to help Kim Rudd with her campaign. This follows the visit by Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer about 3 weeks ago. There were two bus loads – one with media and the other with Justin and his staff. Somewhere in there were security people and of course two Cobourg police were standing by.  Justin stopped by the Buttermilk Café and spoke to a number of patrons – all seemed pleased to see him and many wanted photos. There were a lot more media people than for Scheer on his visit but maybe that’s because the writ has now dropped – see the photos.  After the Buttermilk, Justin walked down King Street to… Read complete articleJustin Trudeau’s quick visit to Cobourg

It was a big event for Conservative Party candidate Philip Lawrence – Andrew Scheer visited Cobourg.  It started with some people gathering at Philip’s office on King Street at around 6:00pm last night – then everyone walked to the Lions’ Pavilion in Victoria Park.  At around 6:30, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer arrived and gave a short speech to the crowd.  His first comment was to answer the question – “what’s it like to have a 5th child?”  He quipped “picture yourself drowning and someone tosses you a baby!”.  He then went on with campaign comments starting with “We can’t afford another 4 years of Justin Trudeau”.  He said that Justin was not as advertised.  He talked about some of his… Read complete articleAndrew Scheer Campaigns in Cobourg

The People’s Party of Canada (PPC) was launched by Maxime Bernier on September 14, 2018 when he broke away from the Conservative Party. Elections Canada gave it official recognition on January 18, 2019. In November 2018, the PPC established an Electoral District Association (EDA) in Northumberland Peterborough-South (see report below).  At the time, Frank Vaughan, a farmer from Codrington, was appointed as Riding president and now he has announced he will be the local PPC Candidate in the Federal election in October.  Frank has issued a long rationale as to why he is running but it is clear that when he references previous government actions, he is unhappy with both Conservatives and Liberals.  The emergence of the PPC and the… Read complete articlePeople’s Party Names Federal Election Candidate