Victorious Bittle pledges commitment to St. Catharines

On أكتوبر 22, 2019

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Liberal incumbent for St. Catharines Chris Bittle and wife Charlene arrive at The Upper Deck Taphouse Grill after being re-elected in the federal election. Monday Oct. 21, 2019. – Bob Tymczyszyn , Torstar

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Liberal incumbent foor St. Catharines arrives at The Upper Deck Taphous
St. Catharines Liberal incumbent MP Chris Bittle reaffirmed his commitment to help the most vulnerable during his victory speech Monday night and said he was humbled to be re-elected.

“Four years ago I made a commitment to the people of St. Catharines that we would hit the ground running, that we would work hard on the issues that mattered to them. And tonight I reaffirm that commitment to you,” he said to a cheering crowd at Upper Deck Taphouse and Grill on Martindale Road late Monday night.

“We have a great deal more to do but we still will focus on the most vulnerable. We will focus on poverty. We will focus on housing and we will not forget about the environment because that is the most critical issue facing our city and facing our country.”

Bittle’s win marked the 14th time in 16 federal elections that St. Catharines has voted for an MP that is a member of the winning party.

He pulled ahead of second-place challenger Conservative Krystina Waler, winning 23,817 votes, or 40.1 per cent of the vote.

Waler had 31.8 per cent of the vote, more than 4,900 votes behind the frontrunner.

NDP candidate Dennis Van Meer placed third with 20.6 per cent of the vote, ahead of the Green’s Travis Mason with 6.1 per cent and People’s Party’s Allan DeRoo with 1.4 per cent.

“I’m humbled to be able to represent St. Catharines again,” Bittle said.

Results streamed in fairly slowly for St. Catharines through the night, with only eight polls reported an hour after voting ceased. All 213 polls were in by 2:30 a.m. Tuesday.

Bittle thanked all four of his opponents for their commitment to the city and said they ran clean campaigns and discussed the issues that matter to St. Catharines.