McKay has no plans

Aside from gathering the 2,000 signs put up during his campaign, MP John McKay says he has no specific plans yet for his riding of Scarborough-Guildwood.

The Liberal incumbent was re-elected for the fifth time, Oct. 14, at the same time the Conservatives were winning a minority nationally.

John McKay shakes hands with Conservative Chuck Konkel after defeating him on election night on Oct. 14.

John McKay shakes hands with Conservative Chuck Konkel after defeating him on election night on Oct. 14.

McKay says he has not thought through what to do once everyone heads back to Ottawa for the new parliament.

“Right now there is no grand plan,” he says, adding he would like to pass through another private members bill, but doesn’t have a subject matter in mind at the moment.

He has had two successful attempts in the past.

“We’re not in power, in some respects you’re in reaction mode, you’re not in planning mode,” McKay said in a phone interview.

He beat out the competition with a 20 per cent lead and over 50 per cent of the votes.

Conservative Chuck Konkel lagged behind with 29 per cent, while the New Democrat’s Sania Khan had 15 per cent of the votes. This riding’s results were fairly consistent with those from the 2006 election, with most parties experiencing only a small gain of support.

Despite his sense of personal success, McKay admitted to being “distressed” by the national results that had the Liberals well back in second.

“That’s not a happy situation,” he said on election night. “I think myself and the Liberal party will have to do some soul searching and figure out where we go from here.”

McKay says he’d, “Like to push for this part of Scarborough to become a destination for education,” but would not go into specifics about how he planned on making that happen.

He repeated several times the limitations of being in the opposition and its affect on making plans.

“That’s the role of the opposition, to react to whatever the government proposes,” he said.

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Posted: Oct 26 2008 9:43 am
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