Liberals Gain in Lanark Frontenac, but Scott Reid Rolls to Victory

Jeff Green | Apr 30, 2025

There was a 45-minute delay before the first results came in for the Lanark-Frontenac and Hastings Lennox and Addington ridings, in Monday night's general election.

When the first polls finally reported in, Conservative incumbent Shelby Kramp-Neuman had grabbed an immediate lead in Hastings-Lennox and Addington, which she never relinquished.

In Lanark-Frontenac, normally an even safer Conservative riding, Liberal Michelle Foxton jumped ahead of long time incumbent Scott Reid, with almost 60% of the early vote to 36% for Reid.

Those numbers did not hold, however, and by the time 15 of the 250 odd polls had reported in, Reid was sitting at over 55%, to Foxton's 40%. As expected, the NDP and Green votes were down from the elections in 2021 and 2019, with most of those votes going to Foxton. With a 55% vote share, Scott Reid appeared to be holding his 49% vote share from 2021, and was receiving most of the 6% vote share that had gone to the People's Party of Canada candidate, in that election.

The percentages held steady over the next 45 minutes, when the CBC and CTV decision desks declared the Lanark-Frontenac seat as a projected hold for Scott Reid. A few minutes later, the Hastings Lennox and Addington riding was declared for Shelby Kramp-Neuman.

The late result in Hastings Lennox and Addington, with 256 of 258 polls reporting has Kramp Neuman with 54% of the vote, Liberal candidate Tracey Sweeney Schenk with 40%, Ava Duffy (NDP) 4%, Michael Holbrook (Green) at 1%, and Zaid Yusufani (PPC) at 0.5%.

As the counting continued in Lanark-Frontenac late into the night, and the high number of advanced votes were factored in, the percentages for Michelle Foxton received a bump, at the expense of Scott Reid. The change was not enough to put the result in doubt, but it did show the impact of the Foxton campaign and the push her team had made, to get out the early vote for her.

By early Tuesday morning, with 260 of 261 polls reporting, Scott Reid's vote share was 50.3%, to 45.5% for Foxton. NDP Danielle Rae stood at 2.9%, and Green Party candidate Jesse Paul, was at 1.3%.

In raw numbers, Scott Reid was at 33,595 to 30,397 for Michelle Foxton, a differential of 3,198 votes.

Scott Reid said he has mixed feelings about the results.

“Happy to be back of course, but disappointed that the leader of my party did not win in his riding, after considerable action on his part. I was not expecting that outcome,” he said.

He also said that it seems to him that there is a significant class divide in the riding, and the country as a whole.

“There are people who are focused on insurance and security and preserving their wealth, those people tend to vote liberal. Then there are people who are concerned that they aren’t able to get by, and find that affordability is problematic, and those people tend to vote conservative.”

He said that when he gets back to Parliament he intends to “focus on affordability” noting that Lanark-Frontenac is not a wealthy area.

“Those who are the least wealthy need the most protection, they’re the ones who are concerned with affordability and they are the ones that cannot be forgotten,” he said.

He also said he wants to thank the voters in the riding.

“The fact is I got a larger number of actual votes cast for me than any other election, besides one, in my career. Thank you for putting your trust in me and I hope I can honourably discharge that trust and respect it,” he concluded.

“I am disappointed for sure, but so proud of my team and the volunteers and everybody who rallied together to make this amazing journey and an amazing campaign,” said Michelle Foxton.

She added that she found during the campaign that “people were energised and they were eager to stand for what they believed in was a strong Canada, together and not divided …  We’ve still got some work to do to make that common ground bigger but we are not far off.”

While she would not commit to running a third time federally in this riding, she did not rule it out either.

She said she will “Reconsider, take a look at the results and debrief on what happened, and we’ll see what the future holds.”

Danielle Rae said she is “incredibly proud to have done this and I want to do it again, in terms of this local campaign. On the national scale, I’m very disappointed. We’re going to have to spend the next few years working hard.”

She described the campaign as an intense learning experience.

“I’ve learned a lot about farming, a lot about local community organising and I’ve been put in contact with so many groups doing good work. I’ve learned a lot about health care policy and how to run a campaign because there’s so much that goes into it,” she said.

She said she learned a lot about the riding as well.

“They want someone that they know and they want someone to advocate for them because a lot of them feel unheard. It’s a much more divided riding than I thought. There’s a lot of people who see themselves as quite left behind and quite unheard.”

She congratulated Scott Reid and said she hopes he will “show the same grace and thoughtfulness he has shown throughout this election. Although we don’t agree on much, I look forward to working with him to bring things like basic income and electoral reform to the political table.”