THUNDER BAY — Lise Vaugeois is officially a two-term member of the Ontario legislature.
Vaugeois won the Thunder Bay-Superior North riding in Thursday’s provincial election, defeating her two closest challengers, Marathon mayor Rick Dumas of the PCs and Thunder Bay city councillor Brian Hamilton, who ran for the Liberals.
“I’m grateful, I’m happy to be able to go back,” she said shortly after being declared the winner. “I’m grateful of the support of Thunder Bay-Superior North.”
Vaugeois’s party will also form the official opposition. Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives will form a third straight majority government.
In her victory speech at the end of the night, Vaugeois said she and her NDP colleagues will continue to hold the government's feet to the fire.
"We just heard Doug Ford made a heck of a lot of promises," she said. "People who've been hurt by this government over the last seven years, so I will be holding him to account with everything I've got, and I hope that we will also, we need to continue to work as a community and build a movement to make sure that government is actually serving the public interest," she continued to applause from supporters.
"We've seen a heck of a lot ... I've only been there for two-and-a-half years and the amount of money I've seen blown on inappropriate spending."
Prior to the election, Vaugeois highlighted highway safety and dealing with the fallout of the selling off of public assets by previous Conservative and Liberal governments as key issues for her at Queen’s Park.
Highway safety is still very much top-of-mind for the returning MPP.
“People are very concerned about highway safety,” she said. “I think it’s going to take actually organizing ourselves outside of party politics to have the whole Northwest demanding that changes are made.”
Bettering healthcare and increasing support for primary healthcare providers are other major issues, she added.
Her closest challenger, Dumas, said he felt welcomed in Thunder Bay during the campaign, but at the end of the night, the electorate spoke.
"People spoke in Thunder Bay and they wanted to continue to work with Lise Vaugeois," Dumas said. "And I'll continue to work with Lise as well as my MPP."
For his part, Hamilton said that pulling together after the election is important.
"Indeed, the world has a very uncertain future ahead so I think that it's important that we unite behind our leadership, not only hold them to account, but support them in supporting us, and making sure that that we come together as Canadians."
As for the election itself, Vaugeois maintained it was one that "shouldn't have happened."
"It'll be interesting because right now when I look at the (TV) screen, I don't see huge changes from the last time," she said. "So we've gone through an enormous exercise, (an) expensive exercise, and I'm seeing more or less the same players — a few changes — so I think that will be worth reflecting on after we see the full results.
Candidates representing the Green Party of Ontario, the Northern Ontario Party, the New Blue Party of Ontario and one independent garnered a combined less than five per cent of the vote.
Vaugeois came to the region back in 1991, when she moved here from Toronto for a position with the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra.
She holds a doctorate in education from the University of Toronto and was an adjunct professor at the Lakehead University Faculty of Education.
Vaugeois was first elected to Queen’s Park in the 2022 election, breaking over two decades of Liberal control of the north-side Thunder Bay riding and its predecessor, Port Arthur. The entirety of the current Thunder Bay-Superior North riding includes the city’s north side and stretches as far north as the Albany River and east to just past Marathon.
She succeeded longtime Liberal MPP Michael Gravelle who did not seek re-election that year. She narrowly placed second to Gravelle in the 2018 election — Gravelle garnered 39.86 per cent of the riding’s vote to Vaugeois’s 37.16 per cent.
In her previous term in office, Vaugeois served in various legislative critic roles, including those for accessibility and persons with disabilities, the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board and injured workers, and services for seniors.
At the end of her victory speech, Vaugeois thanked her team and supporters for their backing, and promised to deliver for them.
"I will be that very focused voice at Queens Park, but I also count on people to be informing me," she said. "Because we need to to strategize together about how we're going to make sure that the government actually serves the interests of people."
-With files from Clint Fleury and Olivia Browning
