{"id":20925,"date":"2018-06-14T00:12:16","date_gmt":"2018-06-14T04:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=20925"},"modified":"2018-06-14T00:12:16","modified_gmt":"2018-06-14T04:12:16","slug":"ontario-votes-2018-im-not-going-anywhere-says-defeated-ballard-predicting-a-very-interesting-next-few-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/ontario-votes-2018-im-not-going-anywhere-says-defeated-ballard-predicting-a-very-interesting-next-few-years\/","title":{"rendered":"ONTARIO VOTES 2018: \u201cI\u2019m not going anywhere,\u201d says defeated Ballard, predicting \u201ca very interesting next few years\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chris Ballard is predicting \u201ca very interesting next few years\u201d for Newmarket-Aurora as he looks to life away from Queen\u2019s Park.
\nThe riding\u2019s former Member of Provincial Parliament who most recently served as Minister of the Environment in Kathleen Wynne\u2019s cabinet, was defeated in last Thursday\u2019s election, coming in third place behind victor Christine Elliott of the Progressive Conservative party and Melissa Williams of the Ontario NDP.
\nSpeaking to The Auroran after the results were clear while waiting to formally concede to Ms. Elliott, Mr. Ballard suggested that the riding might be in for several changes under a Doug Ford government.
\n\u201cI think given Mr. Ford\u2019s platform, we\u2019re going to see a very interesting four years for the people of Ontario and certainly here in Newmarket-Aurora,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is a lot of change coming and I don\u2019t think people will necessarily be pleased by it when they see what they\u2019ve got.\u201d
\nTop of mind, he said, are 650 jobs at a Magna plant in Newmarket which, he said, were kept in Canada due to an investment from Ontario\u2019s Jobs & Prosperity Fund, \u201cwhich Mr. Ford said he would axe,\u201d along with the pending new GO Train station planned for Mulock Drive.
\n\u201cI suspect we\u2019re not going to see that, given the Tories axed GO Transit the last time they came into power,\u201d said Mr. Ballard. \u201cThere are all of those things \u2013 continued investments in our hospital, the mental health hub I have been a champion of \u2013 all of those things I am very concerned about for our local riding.\u201d
\nBefore heading to Ms. Elliott\u2019s victory party at her Yonge and Savage campaign office, Mr. Ballard spoke to supporters at his own event at the Newmarket Legion.
\nHe said he had been \u201cblessed to help shape the destiny of this great province and this wonderful community of Newmarket-Aurora we call home.\u201d
\n\u201cWe fought a great campaign and I can\u2019t think of anything else I would do different, quite frankly,\u201d Mr. Ballard told his team. \u201cWithout your help, I wouldn\u2019t have (a) had the most amazing four years where we have done some fantastic things for this province. I thank each and every one of you for your dedication to the Liberal philosophy of care and opportunity. It really speaks to who you are that you would support me and support the Liberal party in that area.
\n\u201cWe really can hold our heads up high and say our Liberal government was the government that looked out for the little guy. We looked out for the most vulnerable members of our society. It was a government that protected our environment and took real strong steps to fight climate change. As tonight demonstrates, politics can often serve up a rather bitter pill to swallow, but that is what it is. In a few minutes, Cathy [Gapp, Campaign Manager] and I will drive to Christine Elliott\u2019s campaign and I will offer her my congratulations and I am going to say a couple of things: I am going to tell her to take good care of our community, a community that we all cherish; a place where we live.
\n\u201cWe (the Newmarket Aurora Federal Liberal Association) will work to hold this government accountable. We will seek Liberal values and we will restore this party. I want to thank everybody for your hard work, dedication, and above all, thank you for your friendship.
\n\u201cLet me end with Hillary Clinton on her concession speech. She said, \u2018This loss hurts, but please never stop believing that fighting for what is right is worth it.\u2019 It is worth it and the fight, ladies and gentlemen, friends, if I can paraphrase Mr. Ford, the fight starts tonight. As you leave here tonight, hold your head up high. We had a great campaign, we have some great people in this room. I am going to hold my head up high when I leave this room.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chris Ballard is predicting \u201ca very interesting next few years\u201d for Newmarket-Aurora as he looks to life away from Queen\u2019s Park.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/2018-06-14-03.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5rv","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-23 07:56:34","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}