Conservative Member of Parliament-Elect Andrew Lawton is calling on his new colleagues in the House of Commons to lay down their polarizing election campaign strategies and slogans and pull together for the benefit of all Canadians.
“Elections are always polarizing, you have different sides putting forward different visions and I think the most important thing about our democracy is that we respect the results, we move on, and work together,” MP-Elect Lawton said in an interview. “This is a minority parliament and there’s going to have to be room for collaboration from all people.”
Many political pundits across the country have expressed concerns the two-horse race that developed in the April 28 general election reflects a polarization in Canadian politics and perhaps a swing toward a two-party system.
Elections Canada statistics support those concerns, as more than 68 per cent of eligible voters – more than 19.5 million people – cast ballots, with Mark Carney’s Liberals winning a minority government with 8.6 million votes, followed by Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives with 8.1 million votes. Yves-Francois Blanchet’s BQ collected 1.2 million votes, Jagmeet Singh’s NDP 1.2 million votes, and Elizabeth May’s Green Party 241,000.
The Liberals claimed 169 seats in the House of Commons, the Conservatives 143, the BQ 23, the NDP seven and the Green one.
MP-Elect Lawton defeated Liberal David Goodwin in the riding of Elgin–St. Thomas–London South, claiming about 50.7 percent of the vote, while Mr. Goodwin got about 42.6 percent of the vote.
“At the constituency level, as far as I’m concerned, there is no partisanship in serving your constituents,” he added. MP-Elect Lawton will announce the location of a St. Thomas constituency office as soon as a lease is signed. “Regardless of how someone voted, when they call up my office because they need help with an immigration file or a tax file, I work for them, and I think that’s an important dynamic to make sure is preserved.”
MP-Elect Lawton departed for Ottawa early Monday morning and was scheduled to join the Conservatives’ Ontario caucus meeting later in the day, then the national caucus on Tuesday. He is also scheduled to join a House of Commons’ two-day orientation meetings this week.
“It has kind of been a baptism by fire the first week just to get all the ducks in a row,” added MP-Elect Lawton, who speculated he will be sworn into office the week of May 19. “For me, I expected there to be more of a gap between the campaign and getting ready to take on the new role as Member of Parliament, but I actually got a call from the House of Commons on Tuesday, the day after the election, to start the orientation, so it’s really been jumping in with both feet, while I’m still trying to tie up some of the loose ends from the campaign.
“It’s been a really exciting week, and I’ve had a chance to chat with a number of community leaders, municipal politicians, and other folks in the riding that I look forward to working with for however long my term is,” he said. “My first priority is to the people of Elgin-St. Thomas-London South and I’ve already had, throughout the campaign, but especially since the election, I’ve already had a number of constituents reach out with concerns that they were waiting to connect with me on.”
MP-Elect Lawton said it may be a few more weeks before Conservatives decide on the mechanics of their role as Official Opposition, with Mr. Poilievre leading from the sidelines after losing his election race in the riding of Carleton.
“We know that Pierre will be running in a byelection that should be held pretty soon, so he’ll be in the seat before we return in the fall, I suspect, assuming he’s successful there,” said Mr. Lawton. “These things do happen. Obviously, when we sit for the first time at the end of this month, Pierre won’t be a Member of Parliament, but he’s still very much the leader of the party.
“I’m very aware of the fact that I’m going into this in opposition and I’m going to have to fight to get outcomes, to get progress from the government on things,” he said. “That’s going to be an extra bit of a battle compared to if the Conservatives were in, but I think it makes my role more important.”
The battle plan is very clear in MP-Elect Lawton’s mind.
“The affordability crisis is still a major, major concern for people across the country,” he explained. “I think we’re especially hard hit in our riding because we add the way the agricultural sector and the manufacturing sector have been really feeling the pinch.
“We know that the government is going to lay out a vision in a Throne Speech,” he added. “We also know the government has to put forward a budget and I need to make sure this budget is not committing Canada to debt that will take generations to pay off.”
Addressing the condescending rhetoric coming from the U.S. administration of President Donald Trump will also be priority on the Conservatives’ agenda, said Mr. Lawton.
“One of the big challenges though is that we didn’t have a government with a mandate to deal with this threat, to deal with this challenge,” he said. “We had an election, we have a government, we need to be forward looking about this. Obviously, it’s not the government I wanted, but it’s a government that will have to work with other parties and other parties will have to work with, because at the end of the day, we need to make sure that we’re able to put our best foot forward as a county.”
Asked if he has confidence in the prime minister to take on the Trump administration, MP-Elect Lawton said: “Absolutely not and that’s the big problem. This is why I did not think he was suited to be the prime minister, but Canadians have had their say and I think we need to as a parliament do our job to make sure that the government is not losing site of its goals.”
Conservatives also hope to hold the Liberals’ feet to the fire to manage government spending and investments, he added.
“We had a lot of support for the vision and plan that we put forward and while we didn’t form the most seats in the House of Commons, we put forward solutions that resonated with a lot of Canadians,” said MP-Elect Lawton. “We need to make sure that some of those solutions are looked at by the government, given a fair hearing, and that the government is willing to compromise.
“For example, the Liberal platform called for a quarter of a trillion dollars in new debt in deficits over the next four years,” he added. “That is not something that we can afford. That is something that’s going to drive up the cost of living. It’s debt that’s going to take generations to pay off. We need to hold the government to account to have some fiscal restraint so that we can do the things that we need to do as a country to weather whatever comes in the next few years.”
While the NDP may have a diminished role in the House of Commons, MP-Elect Lawton worries the party may still influence the new government’s direction.
“The Liberals only got elected because of the collapse of the NDP vote across the county, including in our riding,” he observed. “We saw traditional NDP support just go to the Liberals. That’s democracy, that happens, but it makes it more challenging for Mark Carney because he’s going to have to straddle this line. He was pretending to Canadians that he was going to be this fiscally responsible leader, but he also got to where he is because of the support of a lot of people that support very high taxes and large government spending initiatives. It’s impossible to be both at the same time.”
Joe Konecny,
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Aylmer Express
