Kramp wins nomination

December 1, 2016

Provincial PC party representative for Hasting-Lennox and Addington Daryl Kramp. / FILE PHOTO

By Sarah Sobanski

Former MP Daryl Kramp has been voted in to represent the PC Party of Ontario for the riding of Hastings-Lennox and Addington.

Kramp won at the nomination election in Tweed, Nov. 26, against Bancroft Councillor Tracy McGibbon and former Hastings-Quinte Paramedic Services chief John O’Donnell. He will run for MPP of the riding in the 2018 election.

Kramp suggested around 700 people voted in the nominee election. He said he was overwhelmed by the support of people in the riding.

“To have garnered the level of support that I did is very encouraging,” said Kramp who gained a first-ballot win — when a candidate receives more than 50 per cent of the vote. “The next steps are to get to work immediately. I’m well aware of the challenges and opportunities in our riding having been involved [in politics] for so long.”

Kramp’s to-do list includes finding solutions for what he called the “energy debacle.” He said he would also like to see jobs matching skills to job requirements in the area.

“We have a significant amount of people who are unemployed in our area. We have many, many jobs that are going unfilled because we don’t have the people with the skills necessary to do the job. We might graduate 5,000 teachers with no jobs available and yet not graduate people with any kind of electrical and or IT capable of dealing with new, modern manufacturing,” said Kramp. “Personally, I’d love to see the shops back into the high schools. We need to bring technology right back in at the secondary schooling level.”

Kramp congratulated his competitors on their campaigns and said he looked forward to working with them in the furture.

“I would like to thank them very, very much. I think we all behaved in a manner that was decent, respectful, hardworking and quite accommodating. In many cases you can come out in any kind of a competition as challengers or as friends. I honestly think we came out as friends and on a positive note.”

McGibbon suggested she agreed with Kramp.

“At the end of the day a great candidate was chosen,” said McGibbon. “I will stand behind Daryl and support him in whatever way I can.”

Ontario PC leader Patrick Brown also congratulated Kramp on his win.

“I had the great honour of working alongside Daryl in Ottawa, and saw first-hand his hard work and dedication to his constituents. Daryl will be a very strong communicator for the Ontario PC Party’s message of change for a better Ontario with the voters in Hastings-Lennox and Addington. I am very excited to have his experience on our team,” said Brown.

He added, “I would also like to thank both Tracy McGibbon and John O’Donnell on running great campaigns and for their contributions to the Ontario PC cause.”