Peterborough musician Sean Conway hopes to be singing a new tune at Queen’s Park come election time this spring.
Originally from Curve Lake First Nation, the 26-year-old indigenous singer-songwriter won the Peterborough-Kawartha NDP nomination Monday night at the Lions Centre in East City.
The last time Peterborough had an New Democrat MPP at Queen’s Park, neither Sean Conway nor Zach Hatton — the two candidates who sought the nomination party — weren’t even born yet.
Jenny Carter was the last person elected to Queen’s Park under the NDP banner, and that was back in 1990, when Bob Rae became the province’s first NDP premier. Carter was one of the 60 party members in the crowd at the nomination meeting.
Zach Hatton, a 17-year-0ld high school student, said both he and Conway were drawn to the party for similar reasons.
“To me, it was a campaign for change,” Hatton said. “We needed a change from Kathleen Wynne and the Conservatives before.
“Andrea Horwath is the right leader to do that and so I wanted to be apart of the team and so I put my name forward July 20th.”
Conway put his name forward in November.
“I love the way the NDP talks about inequality, poverty reduction, eliminating homelessness, better funding for the transit system,” Conway said. “And here in Peterborough-Kawartha specifically and in the province, I’m interested in stopping the privatization of Hydro One.”
Once ballots were cast and counted, Conway was announced as the winner. He told the crowd his campaign starts immediately.
“What an honour, what a privilege,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do and we can start right now.”
For Hatton, there was a moment of disappointment, but he was quick to declare his support for Conway.
“It wasn’t the result we hoped for,” he said. “But Sean is going to be a great candidate for us and he brings a lot of community involvement skills to our team and tomorrow we get to work on electing Sean Conway as our next provincial MPP.”
Conway will be up against veteran politician and current Liberal MPP Jeff Leal and Conservative newcomer and longtime hockey builder and volunteer Dave Smith.
The provincial election is set for June 7.