CALANDRA ELECTED IN OAK RIDGES — MARKHAM

Conservative candidate Paul Calandra spent his Thanksgiving out on the hustings, seeking support in his bid to be the new MP for Oak Ridges — Markham in Tuesdays federal election. By early this morning (Wednesday) he found he had a lot to be thankful for as he upset Liberal incumbent Lui Temelkovski. CTV declared Calandra elected at 12:36 a.m. The race turned out to be a real nail-biter with the lead going back and forth between the two men all evening. Calandra garnered 31,963 votes, or 42.1%, with a 430 lead over Temelkovski who won 31,533 votes or 41.5%. NDP candidate Andy Arifin had 7,120 votes for 9.4% and Green candidate Richard Taylor had won 5,295 votes giving him 7% of the popular vote. Calandra, 38, arrived at his victory party at about 12:45 a.m. this morning. "We were confident the entire election. I don't even know how I feel right now," he said. He was very honoured. This is the second high for Calandra in a little over a week. Last week his wife gave birth to their second daughter. "I'll take last Saturday anytime. Getting married and having two daughters is first, but this is close up there. I was changing diapers up until about an hour ago." Conservative candidate Peter Van Loan, was easily re-elected in York-Simcoe last night, winning 56.7% of the vote with a 18,368 vote lead over Liberal candidate Judith Moses who earned 18.7% of the vote. Sylvia Gerl (NDP) had 12.2%, John Dewar (Green) had 10.1%, Paul Pisani (PC) had 1.4% and Vicki Gunn (CHP) had 0.9% of the vote. Van Loan said "It's very gratifying, every time we've run, the total vote has gone up," after arriving at a party at Shoeless Joe's near Sharon. "I feel the vote of confidence from people who are glad with the job I've been doing and the government has been doing."