Northwestern Ontario incumbents hold onto seats in 2025 provincial election

Current projections are showing Northwestern Ontario's four provincial ridings will be represented by some familiar faces at Queen's Park.

The Ontario Progressive Conservative party was projected as the provincial government on Thursday. The victory marked the third-straight majority for the PCs.

Northwestern Ontario didn't vote for change, either: voters in all four of the region's ridings we re-elected the incumbents, according to projections.

Thunder Bay-Superior North

Lise Vaugeois of the Ontario NDP is the projected winner in Thunder Bay-Superior North. With 81 out of 82 polls reporting, Vaugeois had earned 11,273 votes, which is about 41 per cent of the riding's vote share.

That put her ahead of PC candidate, and Marathon mayor, Rick Dumas, who had about 9,300 votes, and Liberal Brian Hamilton's 5,800.

Vaugeois said her priorities will include highway safety, health care funding, and education.

"We know that our schools are being underfunded," Vaugeois said. "We know that here again in Thunder Bay-Superior North there are kids who can no longer get a bus to school because of cuts."

"The latest statistic was 49 per cent of the students who no longer can get the bus are not coming at all," she said. "That's very, very serious. And those are funding questions. And I will be pushing very, very hard to restore that funding to education."

Vaugeois said the PC government's approach to consulting with First Nations in mining and development has not been healthy.

"First Nations have the right to free prior informed consent," she said. "You gotta have consultation first. But consent is the bottom line."

"There's the free entry system where anybody in the world can make a mining claim over the computer, over the Internet, and that has left the communities with thousands of claims on their territory," Vaugeois said. "The Chiefs of Ontario have asked to to put a moratorium on that."

"The Ford government refused," she said. "That actually is a very nasty strategy to overwhelm those communities."

Rick Dumas, PC candidate and mayor of Marathon, projected second in the riding, with about 2,000 votes less than Vaugeois.

Liberal Brian Hamilton, who's also a member of Thunder Bay City Council, projected in third place, and John Northey of the Green Party finished the night in fourth place in the riding.

Thunder Bay-Atikokan

PC Kevin Holland retook his seat in Thunder Bay-Atikokan.

With all polls reporting, Holland had earned 13,727 votes, or 45.7 per cent of votes cast in the riding.

"When I ran in 2022, it was pretty simple," Holland said of his priorities. "I said we need to have a strong economy to support healthy communities, but we need healthy communities for strong economies."

"And that was really my focus in the 2 1/2 years," he said. "Building up our economy while we're building up the programs that provide for healthy communities, and we've done a lot of work on both those files."

"So really nothing has changed," Holland said. "We have to continue on that path."

Holland, too, mentioned the potential United States tariffs as a focus for the province.

"The reason why we went back to an early election is to position our government, and Ontario, in a better place to be able to deal with the volatility of President Trump," he said. "We're very clear that our focus is to protect Ontario, protect our jobs, to protect our workers and protect our communities."

"That's going to be a big priority for our government moving forward, but as we do that, we continue to work on the great opportunities that are before us here in Thunder Bay-Atikokan, and in our natural resources sector and our forestry, mining, now with Alstom in our manufacturing."

The NDP's Judith Monteith-Farrell was projected to finish second place with about 7,600 votes, and Liberal Stephen Margarit in third with about 300 fewer votes than Monteith-Farrell.

Kiiwetinoong

NDP incumbent Sol Mamawka held on to his seat in Thursday's election, according to projections.

With 45 of the riding's 51 polls reporting, Mamakwa had already pulled far ahead of PC Waylon Scott, who was in second place.

Mamakwa had about 3,100 votes, or 61 per cent of the votes cast in Kiiwetinoong. Scott was at about 1,360 votes.

Liberal Manuela Michelizzi was projected to finish third with 378 votes, and Green Party candidate Carolyn Spicer rounded out the top four with 134 votes.

Speaking to CBC News on Thursday night, Mamakwa said he was feeling "very confident" after his re-election.

"It's an honour to be elected again in the role as an MPP," he said. "It's an honour to serve the north."

"I'm feeling pretty good, and I'm so proud," Mamakwa said. "I worked so hard to be able to try and visit as many communities as I could based just on the snap election."

Mamawka said access to healthcare is going to be a priority when he returns to Queen's Park.

"There's a lot of addictions and mental health issues in the communities, suicides," he said. "Those are some of the priorities I am going to be pushing for."

However, Mamakwa said, the cost of living will also be a focus, especially given the possibility of a trade war between Canada and the United States.

Mamakwa said the relationships he's built during his two previous terms as an MPP will help as he moves into a new term.

"I have good relationships with most of the MPP's that I work with, across party lines," he said. "It's important to create those relationships, but it's also important to put them to task and ask those tough questions to the government and the ministers."

"It's important, as well, to make them understand who we are in Northern Ontario, what we're about and make sure that they do not forget about us."

Kenora-Rainy River

Finally, the residents of Kenora-Rainy River will continue to be represented by Greg Rickford, according to projections.

With all the riding's polls reporting, Rickford had 10,541 votes, or 59.9 per cent of the vote share.

The second-place candidate, the NDP's Rudy Turtle, had 3,308 ballots cast in his favour, while Liberal Anthony Leek had 3,072.

Green Party candidate John Redins had 336 votes.

The Rickford campaign has not responded to CBC News requests for comment, but thanked his supporters in a Facebook post.

"My sincere appreciation to the people of Kenora-Rainy River for placing your trust in me for a third time as your Member of Provincial Parliament," the post reads. "Although times are uncertain, our PC mandate to Protect Ontario remains clear. We will continue to ensure that hardworking families in Northwestern Ontario have the economic certainty and opportunities they deserve."

Full election results are available on CBC's Ontario Votes poll tracker.