The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

2 -- PORT PERRY STAR -- Tuesday, May 7, 1985 There was never a doubt in Durham-York that Ross Stevenson still had a strong hold on the riding once the returns started rolling in. After addressing his supporters, Mr. Stevenson, his wife Elaine and their grand-daughter posed for the Star. Hadden promises to run again: Stevenson holds riding as PC's escape with minority } (From page 1) Scugog Township, also increased the party's vote as she polled 5440 ballots, compared with 4314 in 1981. Despite the fact he went to personal defeat, 'Mr. Hadden and his sup- porters were jubilant as the province wide results became known at his election night campaign room at the Sunderland Arena. (see separate story on the Liberals). As the totals in Durham York indicate, Mr. Stevenson received wide spread support from all areas of the riding, including Scugog Township. In fact, he lost just four regular polls to Mr. Hadden, and four small nursing home polls in Port Perry, Jackson's Point, Georgina and Queensville. Mr. Hadden won two polls in the Sunderland area, including his "home poll," but it was by a scant ten votes. Mrs. Wilbur managed to win just one poll in Caesarea by 11 votes and tied on ancther in Keswick where the NDP had hoped for a stronger showing. Mr. Stevenson had'lit- tle trouble winning his "home poll" near Udora by more than 60 votes, while Marg Wilbur plac- ed third in her home poll south of Utica. THE TOWNSHIP Scugog Township, with 25 polls plus one at the nursing, remained loyal to the Conservatives and Mr. Stevenson. The unof- ficial results show him with 2780 votes from the Township, with Mr. Had- den picking up 1862 and Mrs. Wilbur 1321. On a ward-by-ward basis, Scugog Island gave 315 votes to Mr. Stevenson, 253 to Mr. Hadden and 126 to Mrs. Wilbur. In old Cart- wright, Mr. Stevenson enjoyed the traditional strong support with 696 votes to 370 for the Enthusiastic Liberals treat loss like the beginning of anew era Once again Durham York Liberals came se- cond banana to Ross Stevenson's Big Blue Machine, but this time local Grits looked upon their loss as a gain of ma- TOP QUALITY for Mother's Day $1.50 each BRUNTON'S QUEEN ST. WEST ~~ PORT PERRY 985-7114 [4 GERANIUMS | Don't Forget Mom on Mother's Day, May 12th! GIFT CERTIFICATES -- a great gift idea -- jor proportions. While introducing Liberal candidate Don Hadden at a Sunderland election night bash, Regional Chairman Gary Herrema announc- ed exuberantly, 'Tonight is the beginning of a new era." Roses, ear-to-ear grins and handshakes were everywhere in the smallish community hall, jam-packed with 150 HELPFUL HINTS Remove heel marks by wiping the spots with kerosenen or turpentine, or just try an ordinary pencil eraser. Thursday & Friday Evenings until 8 P.M. shoppe 176 Perry Street - Port Perry - 985-2532 or so enthusiastic Liberal party workers and their families. The scene looked ex- actly like a victory par- ty, and in a sense, it was. When the numbers were unofficially tallied up, Durham York Liberals had rang up p surprising 9,749 votes, nearly 3,500 more than the party had ac- cumulated in March 1981, under the leader- ship of Gary Adamson. At one point during his election night speech, when the Liberals were still looking at 8,000 vote, Mr. Hadden said, "That was everything we were expecting to do and maybe a little bit more." At most, he added, the party was hoping for an increase of 2,500 votes, which is why the extra 3,500 marked an impor- tant victory of sorts for the organization. '""We've proved the Liberal party is alive and well in Durham York," he told cheering sup- porters. "We'll be back in big a year and a half from now, so don't throw away the signs, keep the stakes. He pledged to run again in the next provin- cial election, and with the Conservatives' minority government, he is counting on only 18 months before hitting the campaign trail again. The optimistic mood at Liberal headquarters was completely opposite to the car ful celebration going on at Uxbridge Arena to mark the Tory © vietory. "They were like a group of people watching their mother-in-law drive over a cliff in their new Cadillac," Mr. Hadden joked, after returning from the PC party to con- cede defeat. And although the Liberals didn't take any votes away from the Con- servatives (who tallied almost identical figures as the 1981 election), it was obvious the party appealed to a whole new bio ot voters, or simply worked harder to make sure the Liberal vote got out of the polls_ Liberal party worker Alex Shepherd of Port Perry also credited Mr Hadden's reputation within the area for boosting Grit support "Don Hadden has done really well. If you go back and look at statistics in this riding, you can see that he has done well,"' he said. "Don is well known, he's respected, and it shows." Liberals and 364 for Mrs. Wilbur who received a. large number of these from the Caesarea area which has strong NDP roots. In the town of Port Perry itself with nine polls, support for Mr. Stevenson was not quite so strong as he collected 818 votes, to 658 for Mr. Hadden and 442 for Mrs. Wilbur. The former Township of Reach with strong Conservative traditions remained that way elec- tion day as Mr. Steven- son took 951 votes to 581 for Mr. Hadden and 389 for Mrs. Wilbur. CONCERN The fact that the PC's and the Liberals were in a tight race was evident at Mr. Stevenson's elec- tion night headquarters at the Uxbridge Arena. There was little celebrating as groups of _ supporters stood around quietly watching the returns from across the province on a large TV screen. The crowd broke into applause just before 10 P.M. when Mr. Steven- son and members of his family entered the hall and they sent up a loud cheer after he spoke to the party faithful for about ten minutes. He praised his cam- paign team for the work in the riding, but ex- pressed sadness at the fact that several well known Cabinet ministers, including Keith Norton went down to defeat. Mr, Norton is from Claremont originally. He called the cam- paign a long and tiring one, and the trend across the province "was not in our favour." Mr. Stevenson" did manage one quip about his own future as a possi- ble cabinet minister, noting with a smile that there will be a few spaces in cabinet. 'I guess we'll just have to wait and see about that," he said. But the disappoint- ment at the Party's showing across Ontario was clearly evident on his face and the faces of the supporters. What was planned to be a vic- tory celebration looked more like a post mortem. The unofficial results as of Thursday night show that 29,542 people cast ballots in Durham, about 54 per cent of the 50,423 voters eligible. That per centage total would be a slight decline from the last election when the turn-out was 57 ° per cent. Returning officer Gord MacMillan said Friday the election went smoothly in the riding with none of the polling stations reporting any major problems. Virtually all the ballots had been counted and reported by just after 10:00 P.M., he said. _He said Friday he would not know until late Monday how many spoil- ed and/or rejected ballots there were in this riding. Don Hadden might have lost the battle in Durham- York but his Liberal party pulled a major coup throughout the rest of the pro- vince by forcing a minority government, and the result was a vic: tory party of enthusiastic proportions at Sunderland arena election night. Above, Mr. Hadden hugs his wife Helen, after the pair ac- cepted roses from party workers. See story for details.