SIOUX LOOKOUT — Sol Mamakwa has easily won a third term as MPP for Kiiwetinoong.
With 45 of 51 polls reporting late Thursday night, the New Democrat had 3,124 votes or 61 per cent of votes counted.
Waylon Scott of the Progressive Conservatives had about 27 per cent. Liberal Manuela Michelizzi had about seven per cent. Candidates for the Green and Northern Ontario parties had less than five per cent combined.
“A lot of people told me that (re-election) would be a shoo-in, but that that did not stop me from campaigning hard,” Mamakwa told Newswatch.
“I did not take anything for granted, I just kept on campaigning hard, and I told people to vote.”
The result indicates “the confidence that the people have in me to be able to provide that voice for Northwestern Ontario and for the people of Kiiwetinoong,” he said from campaign headquarters in Sioux Lookout.
“And it’s not just the reserves but also the towns too. There’s so much support here.”
So, was the third campaign any easier than the first two?
“You know,” said Mamakwa, “this was not an easy task. I remember the first day I flew and it was minus-35 or minus-40, and that's not the best campaign weather.”
Speaking to Newswatch before the polls closed, the PCs' Scott said he believes his campaign achieved its objectives in the four weeks leading up to election day.
“I sent the message out to the voters on what I could do for the riding,” he said, before listing accomplishments as chief of Wabaseemoong Independent Nations since 2019.
As chief, Scott said, he has secured funding for health care, child care, policing and other services in his community, and benefits for hundreds more Wabaseemoong members affected by mercury poisoning.
“If this is my last term as chief, I will leave community politics with a smile knowing I’ve made things better.”
Liberal candidate Michelizzi said she achieved her main campaign objective, “which was to increase my results from the last election. My riding has always been an NDP riding. Sol has had a stronghold there for years.
“And I think I went in this time just hoping to improve my votes from last election, and we’ve done that, so I’m happy tonight.”
Created in 2017, the Kiiwetinoong riding’s name means “north” in Ojibwe. It is the province’s largest electoral district by area and its only majority-Indigenous one.
Mamakwa, from Kingfisher Lake First Nation, won the Kiiwetinoong seat for the orange party in 2018 with 49.9 per cent of the vote, well ahead of Clifford Bull’s 27.2 per cent for the PCs.
Re-election in 2022 was by a wider margin, 57.6 per cent versus 29.9 per cent for second-place Dwight Monck (PC).
Mamakwa is deputy leader of the Ontario NDP and the party’s critic northern development and Indigenous relations.
Before election to the legislature, he was a Sioux Lookout First Nations Health Authority board member, co-chair of the Sioux Lookout Meno Ya Win Health Centre and the health transformation lead for Nishnawbe Aski Nation.
