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Voter turnout in both the Sudbury and Nickel Belt ridings was considerably lower for the 44th Canadian federal election than it was for either of the previous two elections.
In Sudbury, voter turnout was 57.99 per cent this time around, compared to 65 per cent in the 2019 election and 69 per cent for the 2015 race.
It was a similar story in Nickel Belt, where the turnout was slightly higher. Elections Canada data shows 61.66 per cent of electors turned out to vote, compared to 64 per cent in 2019 and 67 per cent in 2015.
In terms of the individual race results, which are still unofficial, with 219 of 220 polls reporting, Liberal Viviane Lapointe is headed to Ottawa, having secured 15,217 votes in Sudbury, or 34.2 per cent of the vote. NDP’s Nadia Verrelli took 13,148 votes (29.6 per cent), while Conservative Ian Symington took 12,364 votes (27.8 per cent).
In the 2019 election, Liberal Paul Lefebvre won his second term with 40.9 per cent of the vote, six points higher than Lapointe’s 2021 result. Nadia Verrelli for the NDP took 29.6 per cent of the vote, a slight improvement on 2019 candidate Beth Mairs’ result of 28.9 per cent.
In Nickel Belt, with 208 of 209 polls reporting, MP-elect Marc Serré kept the riding Liberal, taking 34.3 per cent of the vote. Andréane Chénier for the NDP secured 27.5 per cent, while Conservative candidate Charles Humphrey was close behind with 27.2 per cent.
While Serré won fairly easily, his support has fallen off. In 2019, he was elected with 38.9 per cent, five points higher than the 34.3 per cent he took in 2021. NDP support also fell. In 2019, candidate Stef Paquette took 32 per cent of the vote, compared to the 27.5 per cent Chénier secured in 2021.
Although they won only a single seat in the Northeast (Parry Sound-Muskoka), the Conservatives made considerable gains locally this election, climbing about six points over their 2019 showing.
In Sudbury, Symington took 27.8 per cent of the vote, while Humphrey took 27.2 per cent in Nickel Belt, just under the NDP candidate. In 2019, Sudbury Conservative candidate Pierre St. Amant managed just 20.5 per cent of the vote, while the party’s Nickel Belt candidate, Aino Laamanen, earned 21 per cent.
Many suspect Maxime Bernier’s right-leaning populist People’s Party of Canada (PPC) siphoned off Conservative votes, so the results could have been higher for the Tories. Locally, the PPC trounced Green Party candidates in both ridings to secure fourth place.
In Sudbury, PPC candidate Colette Methé took six per cent of the vote, well ahead of Green Party candidate David Robinson at 2.1 per cent. In Nickel Belt, PPC candidate David Hobbs pulled 9.3 per cent of the vote, well ahead of Green candidate Craig Gravelle, who earned 1.7 per cent of votes.
