Guelph won’t have a seat at the provincial government table this term, as local Progressive Conservative Party candidate Robert Coole came up short in the contest to represent the riding at Queen’s Park.
Green Party leader Mike Schreiner claimed his third straight election night victory to win the riding on Thursday evening and be returned as Guelph’s MPP.
“I knew it was an uphill battle and I did everything I could,” Coole told GuelphToday. “I didn't expect anything less. I mean, you can't beat a giant with a slingshot.
“Schreiner is just a juggernaut.”
Coole finished with 14,386 votes. That's 23.92 per cent of ballots cast in Guelph.
The PCs, under leader Doug Ford, cruised to their third majority victory to form the next provincial government. With more than 97 per cent of polls counted across the province, PC candidates were projected to claim 81 of the 123 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, down slightly from 83 in 2022 and 76 in 2018.
Coole, who served as the Guelph PC riding association president for several years prior to being appointed as the candidate, isn’t sure if that’s the role he’ll return to.
“It's been an interesting change,” he said of being the candidate this time around. “Now you’re the face of the whole campaign.
“Actually, I had a lot of fun.”
Coole said he’ll “always” be involved in politics, even though he’s undecided about what role he’d like to have.
Asked if there’s anything he would do differently on the campaign trail, Coole said no.
“We knocked on doors. We put out signs. Every piece of literature we bought got put out,” he said. “We didn’t skimp on anything.
“We gave it a shot and I’m not ashamed of anything we did.”
The PCP candidate during the 2022 provincial election, Peter McSherry, garnered 11,149 votes (20.41 per cent of ballots cast) – enough to finish in second place behind Mike Schreiner’s 29,752 (54.45 per cent).
