Barrie’s PC incumbent Rod Jackson unseated by Liberal Ann Hoggarth

By Bob Bruton, Barrie Examiner

Ann Hoggarth started late, but she finished strong.

The Barrie Liberal candidate swept aside incumbent Progressive Conservative Rod Jackson in Thursday’s Ontario election, beating him by more than 2,000 votes, even as her party marched to an unexpected majority government.

As she joined a throng of supporters at the Town & Country Steakhouse in downtown Barrie just after 10:30 p.m., they chanted ‘Ann! Ann! Ann! Ann!’

“Every person in here helped to make this happen,” said Hoggarth, an elementary school teacher. “We want to move forward positively.”

Hoggarth wasn’t announced as Barrie’s Liberal candidate until May 13 – 11 days after the election campaign started. Jackson had that much of a head start, yet she still won.

Aileen Carroll, Barrie MPP from 2007 to 2011, said Hoggarth won the Barrie riding because of her familiarity with voters.

“Ann Hoggarth knows everybody in this town. She was born and raised here,” Carroll said. “She taught them, she lived next to them. She was under the radar and it was subtle. She was everywhere.”

Barrie has been a Tory riding provincially for 15 of the last 18 years – all but the three Carroll was its MPP.

“So we needed someone other than me to win,” Carroll said. “Now this city belongs to both parties.”

Hoggarth and Carroll both pointed to Tory leader Tim Hudak’s ‘Million Jobs Plan’, which included cutting 100,000 civil service jobs, as a key to the Liberal victory.

“I think there was a big rally with lots of families, young families, that don’t want to go backwards,” Hoggarth said. “Young families that want all-day kindergarten to continue. They don’t want to pay an extra $6,500 for daycare. They don’t want their special needs students to go without EAs (educational assistants). I think it had to do with families.”

She said Hudak’s message was the wrong one, and at the wrong time.

“People have really just started to recover from the recession and if you look at it, the Conservatives never do take care of the deficit,” Hoggarth said. “They talk about it all the time and then they get into office and they forget about it. The same with the debt.”

Others also pointed to the Tory platform as a key to the Liberal victory.

“Hudak has shot himself with his negativity,” said Peter Bursztyn, who’s run for the New Democrats in Barrie. “No one will work with him.

“I don’t have anything against Rod Jackson. I just can’t stand his boss.”

Longtime Liberal Mike Ramsay said the Tory strategy just didn’t resonate with voters.