Following the trend of winning numbers across the nation, Mississauga Centre saw a Liberal victory too, and another loss for the Conservative Party.
Liberal Omar Alghabra captured 56.1 per cent votes cast, leading Conservative Julius Tiangson, who trailed behind with 32.5 per cent. Farheen Khan of the NDP and Linh Nguyen of the Green Party followed with 9.1 per cent and 2.3 per cent respectively.
Tiangson, awaiting results with his campaign manager Manish Sawhney, family and supporters at the Mississauga Centre Conservative Association office, later admitted to have declared himself “not a winner” by 10 p.m.
“The Liberal Party deserves this win and I think they have won an outstanding campaign, but at the same time I believe that the Conservative plan and message is very important,” Tiangson said.
“It is sad that it was packaged in a manner that it wasn’t heard. It is all about how you roll a dice in a campaign, but at the same time don’t count the Conservative Party out … it is going to be a very strong opposition.”
Tiangson said he was pleased with the performance if not the outcome.
“Campaign-wise nothing went wrong actually and I am very happy the way that our team has performed. Appeal usually comes in a wave and when that wave comes it is hard to stop it.”
Campaign manager Sawhney, in a later conversation, had different thoughts.
“When you lose a match or a game, you always feel that there is something that you could have done but did not do,” he said. “I am not going to lie and say that I have done everything. Had I done everything, we would have won.”
Tiangson thanked his family and supporters and said that the feeling of losing is not going to stop him from working for Canadians.
“I will continue to advocate for seniors and young people. But for all those who believed in me, let me tell you one thing. I am not giving up, and that there is always a next time.”