Celebrating victory in the Oct. 19 federal election, the Scarborough-Guildwood Liberal candidate suggested his leader could have been much nastier in his attack against the incumbent Tories.

John McKay celebrated his seventh re-election with a victory party at his campaign office on Monday night. About 50 members of the community came to show their support as the results were being tallied. McKay finished the election with 60 per cent of the vote in the riding, according to the CBC’s Canada Votes website, defeating Conservative candidate Chuck Konkel by 12,787 votes.

NDP candidate Laura Casselman was third with 11 per cent.

After the results were announced, McKay thanked the community and his volunteers for and acknowledge Prime Minister designate Justin Trudeau had not bowed to an attack philosophy during the campaign.

“I would say that a positive campaign is more successful than a negative campaign ultimately. You have to go through a lot of pain,” McKay explained.

“Mr. Trudeau would like to have said something really negative about Mr. Harper and would like to have run ads about Harper, but he didn’t take that opportunity and I think that frankly this is a victory for democracy,” he said.

Aside from being an MP, McKay has also served as the Liberal Party of Canada critic for the environment portfolio since 2013, and hopes to hold onto that role in the new government. McKay took the opportunity at his post-election reception to thank his supporters.

“I’m very grateful for the confidence given to me by the people of Scarborough-Guildwood,” McKay said. “After months and years of hard work, Mr. Trudeau scored a historic victory.”