Sousa arrived at a campaign event in Mississauga and declared himself the winner on Monday night to cheers from a crowd of more than a hundred supporters, as results were still trickling in.
The Liberal party also declared victory late Monday evening, saying in a news release that this leaves it “in a strengthened position” at the end of 2022. He suggested that if Liberals retained a significant lead, that would mean that Poilievre was “doing worse” than his two immediate predecessors, Erin O’Toole and Andrew Scheer.
The former banker had lost his seat in the 2018 election that saw the provincial Liberals fall from the governing party to one without official status in the legislature. “I am feeling really confident because I think people are confident in him,” she said at the Oasis Convention Centre shortly before polls closed.
It was the first contest under the Conservative leadership of Poilievre, in an area of the country crucial to his party’s chances of success in future federal elections.