Stewart joins Smith and Thompson as election candidates

Merrill Stewart

Prince Edward-Hastings members of the NDP have chosen Merrill Stewart as candidate in next month’s provincial election. He will campaign against current MPP Todd Smith, Conservative, and Georgina Thompson, Liberal candidate.

“This election is about jobs. You don’t create jobs by laying 100,000 people off,” said Stewart in his acceptance speech. “We have had 30 years of austerity and it doesn’t work. Andrea Horwath’s plan to give employers a tax credit for hiring new employees is a plan to create jobs.”

Stewart is a long time New Democrat. In 2001, he ran against Ralph Klein’s government in Alberta. He has been a member of the Prince Edward-Hasting NDP Riding Association executive for the past eight years.

Stewart was born in PEI. His father was in the RCAF, so the family moved often. He is married to Linda and they have two adult sons. The couple moved to Belleville in 2004. His career has been with the Sears home improvement sales department. He retired early during the last round of layoffs.
He sat on the board of Bridging the Gap, a charity that works with children, and the national chair of the Canadian Friends Service Committee, a charity working on international peace and development, jails, justice, and Indigenous issues.  He has also been a board member of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, a coalition of human right groups, unions, and churches concerned with the impact of the anti-terrorist legislation on Canadian civil liberties.

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Todd Smith

Todd Smith has been the Prince Edward Hastings MPP since defeating Leona Dombrowsky in the 2011 election.  He will be opening his Conservative Party Office Tuesday, May 13 at 6 p.m. at 318 Main St., Picton next to Shire Hall. Smith is the former news director at the Quinte Broadcasting radio stations for the past six years. A native of Riverview, New Brunswick he attended Loyalist College and has been with QBC since 1993. Todd was also the play-by-play voice of the Belleville Bulls.

Georgina Thompson

Georgina Thompson is the Prince Edward Hastings Liberal candidate. Thompson recently graduated with a Master of Healthcare Administration and presently works at Hasting Manor as a front line nurse hoping to continue on with her studies in nursing at the Nurse Practitioner level. She is a member of Certify Health Care Executive sitting on the Executive team for Eastern Ontario. She was previously chair of the South East Local Health Integration Network.