By Chad Ingram

Jamie Schmale will again be the MP for Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock and will again be in
Opposition.
Schmale easily reclaimed the federal seat for HKLB for a second term on Monday night amid the
backdrop of a Liberal minority government for Justin Trudeau. He took 49.2 per cent of votes in the
riding followed by Liberal Judi Forbes with 25.9 per cent NDP candidate Barbara Doyle with 14.7 per cent the Green Party’s Elizabeth Fraser with 8.3 per cent and People’s Party of Canada candidate Gene Balfour with 1.9 per cent.

At The Cat & the Fiddle pub in Lindsay Schmale thanked his campaign volunteers and staff for their
work. “It seemed very long at some points but we all held it together” he said. “We worked hard we
pushed hard to the finish line … and because of each and every one of you we kept this riding
Conservative blue.”
Schmale also acknowledged the number of young people who worked on the campaign.
“We had a lot of youth out today and they were hard workers” he said. “It’s good to see young blood
involved in the Conservative movement.”

While it was a victory for Schmale locally it was defeat for the Conservatives nationally the Liberals
hanging on with a minority government. During a press scrum Schmale said the minority situation
would demand co-operation between parties.
“It just means that the parties will have to work together to keep Parliament going and the confidence of the House” he said.
“Any piece of legislation now is going to have to have multi-party support” Schmale said adding that
this wasn’t all that uncommon. “For the most part in the last Parliament there were lots of pieces of
legislation that got two- three- four-party support. So it’s not unusual. It’s the really big stuff like
confidence bills that will have to be carefully dealt with . . . . The first Speech from the Throne will be
the first confidence bill which I’m sure will pass because nobody wants to have an election this close to the previous one.”

Schmale was asked given the year and a half of scandal that has enveloped Trudeau how he still
managed to win and what Andrew Scheer’s viability continuing as Conservative leader will be.

“I think Justin Trudeau goes into the next Parliament severely damaged he had a number of
scandals” Schmale said listing off a number including the SNC Lavalin affair. “I think maybe in his
mind he can hold the confidence of the House for a bit but he is going in damaged.”
“[Trudeau] will have to work with other parties as we all do in a minority situation” Schmale said
adding that Trudeau had concentrated power in the Prime Minister’s Office during the past four years of majority rule. “His way of doing business is going to have to change.”
As for Scheer “Andrew Scheer as it stands now has increased the amount of seats the Conservative have in the House and that’s what he was looking to do.”

Schmale served as executive assistant to former HKLB MP Barry Devolin for 11 years before being
elected to his first term in the 2015 election.