Politics

Kathleen Wynne speaks following the Liberals’ crushing election loss – Full video

The outgoing premier held her first press conference following the Liberals’ election loss.

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne will hold a press conference following the crushing defeat her party suffered Thursday night. The majority of Liberal party MPPs were voted out after 15 years in power — Liberals only won seven seats.

She is expected to speak at 2 p.m. at Queen’s Park and likely address the the toppling of the Liberal party following the PC election victory, as well as how her party will deal with officially losing its ‘registered party’ status after falling one seat short of the number needed to considered an official party in Queen’s Park.

Wynne, who also resigned as leader of the Ontario Liberals last night, will likely also touch on the transition of power to Premier-Designate Doug Ford whose PCs won 75 seats.

Here is an excerpt of the comments she gave to her supporters Thursday night:

“I know…I know that tonight is not the result we were looking for and no one feels that more sharply than I do. But this is not a moment where any of us should linger…we can’t stay here. I hope that you can feel very proud of what we have done together in the past and absolutely determined to take on the task that lies ahead. We won’t get there with anger. We won’t get there with despair. So, although I’ve lost this election tonight, I have not in any way lost my passion for continuing this work. Continuing to find ways to make it all work better.

You know…life…you know…I…life is always complicated and I think we can look back at the past with rose-coloured glasses. My dad today when I took him, he and my mum, to vote, he was talking about how his mum talked so much about not having been able to vote until she was 30 or so and he says it’s just like yesterday he remembers that. So, there have been fights throughout our history. But, right now, climate change, technological change, Donald Trump, protectionism, populism make our world particularly complicated.

Our job, and I mean all of us, is to tackle those forces to make sure we assert our values as the people of Ontario: strong, resilient, caring people. We’ve got a great thing going here. It’s the best place in the world to live. People come from around the world, literally, to look at the excellence that we’ve built in our schools, health care, clean tech. So, let’s keep that momentum going. We all have a role to play, every single one of us.

And as the song says, and I’m going to paraphrase ‘We’re still standing’ [laughs]”

 

MORE ABOUT KATHLEEN WYNNE:

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