First and foremost, he won. 

But before I get into the political details of the night, I want to take a moment to appreciate the party. Hosted at the Peterborough Golf and Country Club, the Progressive Conservative (PC) election night rally was a pleasant night of socializing, munching, and watching the news on a projector. The staff were friendly, competent, and snuck me free drinks. The food was pretty good (I ate about a tenth of it over the four hours I was there), and all in all, the vibes were good. 

Maybe that’s just because I enjoy speaking with the elderly and am a six-foot-four white guy. As far as rough estimates go, aside from a few outlying youths who really put in a lot of work to drag the median down, the average age of people in attendance was probably 55-60ish. Of course, that isn’t necessarily a statement about the party or its policies. It was an event that ran from 7:30-11 PM on a weeknight, and some people have more time on their hands than others. 

The campaign staff were pleasant, with one exception. 

They did immediately begin treating me with the confused, concerned looks one would cast on a domesticated bear the moment I told them I was a journalist, which was pretty unsettling. The one exception was campaign manager Brock Terry who told me and the rest of the journalists not to interview any of the attendees. 

He claimed that it was a private event (a private event for a public figure running for public office who had specifically invited the media to attend), and that the people in attendance weren’t there to be interviewed. Note that this wasn’t, to my or any of the other journalist’s knowledge, because we were bothering anybody. 

Strange maneuver from what purports to be the party of personal liberties and freedom of speech. Aside from a weird vibe around speaking to the press among some of the campaign staff, everyone I interviewed was very pleasant and open to talking. Terry did later sorta-kinda apologetically remind me that there were celebratory free drinks after the event, so I dunno, maybe I forgive him.

Everyone in attendance offered glowing praise for re-elected MPP Dave Smith, with members of the audience becoming the first people I’ve met ever to compliment Doug Ford. Everyone I spoke to (diligently before Terry told me to cut it out, of course. I really want to stress how weird it was that he specifically, annoyedly told me and the rest of the media to stop recording glowing praise for Dave Smith. Genuinely thought he was going to toss us out for a moment) had personal anecdotes about Dave Smith and his positive impacts on their life. 

Disability activist and Constituency Office Assistant Andrea Doodsworth who spends her days helping people access ODSP and other supports met Smith through his involvement in her special needs Hockey team, and said that he had been a big help to her in aiding her community. 

Or take Pamela Dickey who proudly told me before the votes had been counted that she came out to “celebrate Dave’s win.” She along with her friend Gloria talked about how much they appreciated his home-town charm, and how he’d take time to show up to community events like roast beef dinners. They also said that he was the only candidate that bothered to go to the more remote parts of the riding like where they’re from in Northern Peterborough county. 

“He’s out to all the events,” Gloria said “The other constituents, when they were running, the only time you saw them was when they were giving money away. They come out smiling like they were groundhogs coming out of a hole.” 

“They didn’t know us. They didn’t know Trent Lakes at all,” Dickey said. “We know that if we are in a situation, and we need help, we phone Dave and he’s going to be right there for us… I do a program for seniors in the fall, and Dave helps me out with that. Actually, two years ago he got up at Parliament and acknowledged me, that was kinda cool.”

These personal stories highlighting Smith’s appeal were not in the minority. I also observed praise from veterans, firemen, and a host of others. Everyone in attendance had been touched by Smith and his office in some way. 

The man of the hour did not come out right away. It was most of three hours after the event began that Smith emerged triumphantly through the blue streamers into the event space to a literal standing ovation and chants of “Dave! Dave! Dave!” 

Smith explained that the reason for his absence was because he was waiting for a call from some of the other candidates who lost to congratulate him, but his phone never rang. This was roughly two minutes before Liberal candidate Adam Hopkins walked into the room, having come in person. 

To my surprise, he was also given applause. 

Smith then went on to thank various people including the aforementioned Brock Terry, his daughter, his parents-in-law, and a slew of other volunteers. Afterwards, he talked about the election results itself. 

“It is a precedent setting. We have not had a government in Ontario that has increased their seat count in each election. In fact, it's been very difficult to have three consecutive majority governments in a row,” he said before giving  his regrets to some of his fellow conservatives that lost their seats.

This was all said before the final votes were counted. According to the unofficial election results from Elections Ontario, the Progressive Conservatives ended up losing 3 seats in this 168 million dollar election, despite their share of the popular vote increasing by a little less than 3%.  

There has also only been one provincial minority government in the last 30 years.

One of the main concerns Smith brought up repeatedly in his re-election speech was a lack of land in Peterborough, which was damaging Peterborough’s capacity to grow business—a claim that Peterborough City Councilors have recently rebuked, citing Smith personally. 

“We have a college and a university that are graduating high quality, young employees who have to leave our community because there aren’t jobs available,” he said. Smith also stated that this territorial expansion for economic growth would directly relate to a variety of other services the government could provide. 

“If we don’t have a strong economy, we don’t have the income to look after all the other things. A strong healthcare system, strong healthcare system, transportation, all of the social safety networks come when you have a strong economy,” he said. “We need to be building the economy and bringing jobs back to the greater Peterborough area. Not just the city of Peterborough, but the county of Peterborough as well.” 

When asked what he would do to focus specifically on helping students in the area, he cited a 1.2-billion-dollar investment from his party to cover the loss of international students. 

“With respect to what students are looking for, I think every student who is going into post-secondary education is looking for an opportunity to have a home of their own at some point, to have some form of a career, to raise a family if they so choose. Everything we’re doing is trying to build Ontario in a better position [sic], so that all of our youth, all of our middle-class people—everyone from cradle to grave—has the opportunity to be the best they can be.” 

In response to concerns for student housing, Smith stated that he has been working to implement new systems of transit in Peterborough for students commuting from the GTA. “We’re looking at a 24 dollar round trip from [the GTA] to Peterborough, and I think that when you do that—an hour and two minutes—it becomes far less expensive then for someone in the GTA to commute to Peterborough to go to school, rather than to move to Peterborough to rent a location” he said, concluding that this concept would “free up” some of the housing stock in Peterborough. 

On topics of interest, when I asked what he would do if he hadn’t won the election, Smith said he would open a doggy daycare.

 “My wife has this grand plan that we would have a doggy daycare on our property. She would buy an old school bus and I would be the school bus driver going from home to home, picking up people’s dogs and bringing them to our doggy daycare,” he said before giving a serious answer about getting a job in software. 

Overall, it was a pretty good night. While yes, there were a few conservative stereotypes in the crowd such as one person explaining to me that Liberal candidate Mark Carney, former Governor of the Bank of Canada, was a communist alongside the rest of the World Economic Forum with another individual attempting to convince me that an armed society is a polite society. 

I valued all my conversations with them. It was a lovely evening to re-acquaint myself with a wing of democracy I rarely engage in, and for that, I am thankful.

That and the food. I really did eat a lot of it.