After a hard fought provincial election campaign, the voters of York West have once again elected Mario Sergio as their Member of Provincial Parliament. Sergio, who has been the local representative in Queen's Park for nearly two decades, defeated NDP candidate Tom Rakocevic by 1,860 votes, helping Premier Kathleen Wynne's Liberals to achieve a majority government.
“I have been honoured and extremely pleased to have had the support of the people of York West since 1995 provincially and I have to say that I have served the same people since 1978 as their local councillor,” Sergio said. “I've had a long and wonderful relationship with the people of York West and I will will work hard, harder than before to continue to serve the people of York West.”Sergio who will continue to serve as the Minister responsible for Seniors, said that he is excited to continue moving forward in this capacity. “I have already held a meeting with the Ontario seniors secretary and staff to relaunch the community grant program for seniors,” he said. “We are ready to go and we are very positive with four years of progress for the people of Ontario.”Despite falling short in this election, Rakocevic said he is undeterred and would like to run again in the next provincial election. “I received an overwhelming amount of support and I was very humbled by it,” Rakocevic said. “I will definitely be seeking the nomination to run in York West again and I will continue to volunteer my time to work in the community until the next election.” Following the election, Rakocevic has continued to work as an executive assistant to councillor Anthony Perruzza and said that he will remain visible in the community.“I'm definitely going to fight for the issues that are important to my community and I want to encourage people that their voice matters, it matters to me and that each and every one of us can create change,” he said.Karlene Nation, who ran for the Progressive Conservative party, coming in a distant third, said that while she was disappointed by the election results, she was proud of her campaign. “We gave it a good go and I'm pretty proud that I got to speak to as many residents as I did about the issues and more importantly, I'm happy that I've gotten a lot of young people involved who have helped me and helped my campaign,” Nation said. “We have our work cut out for us in York West and we're doing what we need to do to win the election next time around.”Nation, who recently left CTV news after working there for 21 years as a reporter and diversity producer to start her own media company, One Nation media, where she helps her clients to gain media exposure, said she does not plan on running again in York West. By David Ros