{"id":7025,"date":"2014-06-13T02:12:47","date_gmt":"2014-06-13T06:12:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=7025"},"modified":"2014-06-18T15:26:28","modified_gmt":"2014-06-18T19:26:28","slug":"ballard-overjoyed-to-be-newmarket-auroras-next-mpp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/ballard-overjoyed-to-be-newmarket-auroras-next-mpp\/","title":{"rendered":"Ballard \u201coverjoyed\u201d to be Newmarket-Aurora\u2019s next MPP"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Aurora and Newmarket residents are sending Chris Ballard to Queen\u2019s Park. <\/p>\n

The Aurora Councillor took the Newmarket-Aurora riding on Thursday night with unofficial results giving Ballard a decisive 22,294 votes to Progressive Conservative candidate Jane Twinney\u2019s 19,510. <\/p>\n

Across the riding, 6,092 votes went to Angus Duff of the NDP, 2,167 to Andrew Roblin of the Green Party, 925 to Dorian Baxter of the Canadians\u2019 Choice Party, 579 to Libertarian Jason Jenkins, and 164 to Bob Yaciuk of the Trillium Party of Ontario. <\/p>\n

Speaking to a crowd of supporters at his campaign party, held at the Newmarket branch of the Royal Canadian Legion, Ballard said he was \u201cabsolutely overwhelmed and overjoyed\u201d to be elected to Queen\u2019s Park.
\n

\"Progressive

Progressive Conservative candidate Jane Twinney congratulates Ballard on his win Thursday night.<\/p><\/div>
\n\u201cI want everyone here to know the debt of gratitude I owe you for your countless hours of work and your support, and your belief that not only could I win, but the Liberals could win in Newmarket-Aurora once again,\u201d Ballard told supporters. \u201cWhat a good feeling it is!\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking ahead to his first days in the Ontario Legislature, Ballard said he was eager to \u201cget the ball rolling.\u201d One of his core platform planks this election campaign was the protection of the Oak Ridges Moraine. A top priority now, he said, was convening a \u201ccitizens\u2019 roundtable\u201d on the Oak Ridges Moraine legislation before it comes up for review next year. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe need citizens from Aurora and Newmarket to be a part of shaping that new legislation and protecting the Oak Ridges Moraine,\u201d he said.
\nEarlier in the evening, Ballard was speaking to The Auroran when excitement in the room was kicked up to eleven. <\/p>\n

\u201cWithout getting maudlin, I wish my dad was here. He was the real political guy in our family and he would have appreciated this,\u201d said Ballard when asked what was going through his mind as his polling numbers continued to steadily climb \u2013 and then his campaign manager, Cathy Gapp, interrupted to say CBC had projected him the winner. <\/p>\n

After a brief pause, he continued, shifting gears slightly. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to disappoint them!\u201d he said, looking across the room to his supporters, noting he was cautious not to jump the gun too early on his victory. \u201cSo many people have come out of the woodwork to help me, help Kathleen, and so many friends here and family members, people from all parties have got behind me right from the beginning. I am feeling a tad overwhelmed with their support \u2013 but I am excited at the same time. I am excited about what is to come. This is like a big family and I am looking forward to working with them in the months and years ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Ballard\u2019s win in Newmarket-Aurora was decisive, it was even more so for Kathleen Wynne, who was elected not only with a majority, but also earning a footnote in history by being Ontario\u2019s first duly elected female premier. This, Ballard said, was not particularly surprising to him as the more he knocked on doors, the more he heard people liked Ms. Wynne and \u201cliked her sense of optimism.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am humbled that the people of Newmarket-Aurora have put their faith in myself and Kathleen and I am going to be a strong voice for all of us at Queen\u2019s Park,\u201d said Ballard. <\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Aurora Councillor took the Newmarket-Aurora riding on Thursday night with a unofficial results giving Ballard a decisive 22,294 votes to Progressive Conservative candidate Jane Twinney\u2019s 19,510. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7026,"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_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":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/2014-06-19-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-1Pj","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-14 17:28:42","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\/7025","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=7025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}