Federal Election

January 23, 2006 permalink

In today's federal election, here are the results for candidates with a family law connection:

• John Baird (Conservative), former Ontario Minister of Community and Social Services, was elected in Ottawa-West Nepean.
• Dorian Baxter, running for the PC (Progressive Canadian) party in Newmarket-Aurora got 729 votes out of 58,799 cast.
• Cynthia Cameron (NDP), a mother of an autistic child featured in last year's the report "Between a Rock and a Hard Place" by André Marin, got 5455 votes out of 56,034 cast in Etobicoke-Centre.
• Jim Flaherty (Conservative), who was the Attorney General of Ontario sponsoring bill 117, was elected in Whitby-Oshawa. The bill allows a woman to get control of a man's assets in a court hearing in which the man cannot participate. The bill was enacted in 2000 and has sat on the Lieutenant-Governor's desk without signature since then.
• David Laird (NDP), a Children's Aid caseworker, got 8081 votes out of 64,940 cast in Burlington.
• Anne McLellan (Liberal) former Canadian Attorney General who kept equal-parenting out of the proposed divorce reform, was defeated in Edmonton-Centre.
• Svend Robinson (NDP), author of the law making criticism of homosexuals a hate crime, who fell from grace after being caught in the act of stealing jewelry, was defeated in his comeback attempt in Vancouver-Centre.
• Maret Sadem-Thompson (NDP), former director of OACAS and Durham Children's Aid, got 8720 votes out of 66,793 cast in Whitby-Oshawa.
• David Tilson (Conservative), CAS champion, was reelected in Dufferin-Caledon.

Family law became part of the campaign when Stephen Harper proposed giving parents of pre-school children a tax credit of $100 per month. Scott Reid, Paul Martin's communications director, suggested parents would squander the money on beer and popcorn. Mr Harper incorporated the insensitive remark into his campaign speech.