Londoner Andrew Lawton will represent the Conservative Party of Canada in the new riding of Elgin-St. Thomas-London South in the next federal election.
The former radio host, journalist and author defeated Central Elgin resident Anthony Shields at the nomination meeting held Saturday at St. Anne’s Centre in St. Thomas.
The meeting was closed to the media and there is no indication on the closeness of the vote. The final result was announced early in the evening.
myFm has been advised that about 1,300 members were eligible to vote and a little over 600 did cast a ballot.
Shields does have five days to appeal the decision.
Lawton announced his intention to go after the nomination back in July, the day after MP Karen Vecchio announced she would not seek re-election.
At the time he advised, “I’ve been fighting for freedom and conservative values my whole career. Now, I want to take that fight to Ottawa.
“Today, I’m launching my campaign to become the Conservative member of Parliament for Elgin—St. Thomas—London South.”
He added his priorities include standing up for your freedom and fight censorship, axe the carbon tax and get government spending under control, defund the CBC and stand up to the elites.
We have reached out to Lawton for reaction and have not heard from him at this time.
Shields meantime was frustrated with the short time made available to him for campaigning. The deadline for a nomination meeting was not until Nov. 25.
Neither candidate was allowed to distribute campaign material Saturday at St. Anne’s Centre and they were given five minutes for speeches.
Those in attendance were not permitted to ask questions and the candidates had to leave the premises at 2 p.m. prior to the voting period and returned at 6 p.m.
Shields spent Sunday with his family and agreed to comment in the coming days.
myFM spoke with Vecchio about the date of the nomination meeting and she explained, “As a riding association, we were to look at Nov. 16 and the 23rd and we had people in our riding who have been looking at locations. And then the national party advised us they had a location and they changed the date.”
It appeared there was little communication between national party representatives and members of the local electoral district association.
She added the volunteers at the nomination meeting were not local and came in as a group.
Vecchio observed, “We created a lot of issues that we didn’t have to create before. I think that was one of the greatest challenges.
“We should be celebrating these things. Why are we having closed events like that?
“I’ve never seen that before. I am not sure what they were trying to do in this election.”
This is an evolving story and myFM will have updates as they become available.
