Mary-Margaret McMahon re-elected as Liberal MPP for Beaches-East York in provincial election

By ALAN SHACKLETON

Liberal Mary-Margaret McMahon was easily re-elected to a second term as MPP for Beaches-East York in Thursday’s provincial election.

With all polls reporting, McMahon had received 21, 545 votes (51.21 per cent) compared to second place finisher Kate Dupuis of the NDP with 9,660 votes (22.96 per cent). Progressive Conservative candidate Anna Michaelidis was a close third with 9,001 votes (21.39 per cent).

In the 2022 provincial election, when McMahon was first elected to the seat, she won the Beaches-East York riding by only 898 votes over Dupuis.

In tonight’s (Feb. 27) election, McMahon’s margin of victory was 11,885 votes.

She said going into today’s election, she was confident she was going to be re-elected and that she would win by more votes than in 2022.

“I thought I would win by a larger margin than in 2022,” McMahon told Beach Metro Community News in an interview at her campaign office on Danforth Avenue, just east of Woodbine Avenue, that was in full celebration mode on Thursday night after the election results came in.

“There was a lot of support for the Liberals and I felt it at the doors,” she said. “There were red Tories who were not happy with the Premier (Doug Ford), and I felt a lot of the NDP voters were coming over to us as they saw the Liberals as the only way to hold him (Ford) to a minority.”

While the Ontario Liberals did not stop the Progressive Conservatives from winning their third straight majority under Ford’s leadership, the Liberals did manage to win enough seats to regain themselves official party status in the province.

“I’m thrilled we got party status back,” said McMahon. “Doug Ford had pulled the ground out from under us when he changed official party status from eight to 12 seats.”

In today’s election, the Liberals won 14 seats which was up from the eight they won in 2022, and the nine that they entered this election with as they gained a seat in a Scarborough byelection in 2023. The Liberals also garnered more than 29 per cent of the popular vote across the province.

However, it was not all good news for the Ontario Liberals on election night as their leader Bonnie Crombie was defeated in the riding of Mississauga East-Cooksville by the PC candidate.

McMahon said she is energized to get to work at Queen’s Park with the Liberals.

“The Liberals and myself are eager to be doing the work to help Ontarians and we want to be down there serving the people at Queen’s Park,” she said.

The Progressive Conservatives won 80 seats, which is one more than they entered the election with.

McMahon was critical of the election even being called given the PCs already had a majority government which did not need to go to the polls again until June of 2026.

“It was an expensive election and only called to serve the needs of Doug Ford. I heard so often how people wanted to kick him to the curb for calling this ridiculous, expensive election in these tumultuous times,” she said.

As for the next four years, McMahon said she did not know what to expect from a Ford government.

“I’m scared to think about it. I just don’t know,” she said.

The Official Opposition, for the third straight time, to the Ford government will be the NDP. They won 27 seats in this election, which was down from the 31 they had in 2022 and the 28 they went into this month’s election with.

NDP candidate Dupuis spoke with Beach Metro Community News on election night from a subdued gathering at Local 1794 on Danforth Avenue.

She thanked her campaign workers for their hard and enthusiastic work during a challenging winter election campaign.

“It’s hard to know what voters are going to do,” said Dupuis in trying to explain the huge difference in the results between today’s election results in Beaches-East York compared to the 2022 race. “All we can do is work hard and have a clear message. I’m proud of everything we did and we worked as a team.”

She said she heard from numerous voters at the doors that they were finding life harder under Ford’s government.

Dupuis said the NDP was offering Beaches-East York voters a chance to have an MPP who was part of the Official Opposition.

“We need effective representation to take the meaningful steps against him and we’ve been doing that since 2022,” she said. “The NDP has provided effective opposition and we will continue to do that.”

Dupuis said she is committed to staying involved in the community but wasn’t going to speculate on her political future on Thursday night.

“I’m going to have a cup of tea tomorrow by myself quietly. I’ve always been a community organizer at heart and I don’t think that’s ever going to stop,” she said.

Other candidates running in Thursday’s Ontario election in the riding of Beaches-East York were Jack Pennings of the Green Party with 1,298 votes (3.09 per cent); Thomas Gregory of the New Blue Party with 231 votes (0.55 per cent); Dragan Cimesa, an independent candidate, with 117 votes (0.28 per cent); Paul Start of the Ontario Party with 117 (0.28 per cent); and Bahman Yazdanfar with the Canadians’s Choice Party with 103 votes (0.24 per cent).

According to Elections Ontario, the unofficial voter turnout in Beaches-East York for this election was 50.01 per cent. The voter turnout in the 2022 provincial election was 49.58 per cent.