NEWS

Liberals hold Toronto Centre

Glen Murray celebrates
A NIGHT TO CELEBRATE: Glen Murray celebrates at a Bay Street bar after easily fending off challenges for his Toronto Centre seat.

Liberal Glen Murray easily held onto the Toronto Centre riding, receiving more than triple the number of votes as his closest rival, PC candidate Martin Abell, on June 12.

“There’s a huge amount of humility that comes with winning an election, because in Toronto Centre you have to represent everyone,” Murray told the Town Crier after the results were announced, showing him with 21,882 votes to Abell’s 7,357 and NDP candidate Kate Sellar’s 6,189. “I’ve always taken that very, very seriously.”

Murray thanked the “amazing people” in his life, including his mother Mary Murray, partner Rick Neves and other supporters gathered at The Foxes Den bar on Bay Street.

“Thank you,” he said, as a message to constituents. “I realized for some of them it was an easy decision. I realized some of them were unhappy with things that our government did.”

Murray, who has been an MPP since 2010 and campaigned on transit, community planning and cultural life, said his immediate priorities for the local riding include the downtown relief line, completing hospital redevelopments, shifting more focus on homecare supports and healthcare, getting an increase in minimun wage and the promised retirement safety package, and giving people more control over development reform at the OMB.

He acknowledged the Liberal government, now with a majority, has “some fence mending to do” in light of a series of scandals that had become campaign fodder for opposing candidates.