Curteanu and Empinado gets reelected for second term
All five Filipino-Canadian candidates in the last federal elections lost but three municipal candidates in Canada’s north won seats, some for a second term.
In Manitoba’s Winnipeg North riding, the NDP’s Levy Abad lost to Liberal Kevin Lamoureux by a wide margin, the largest majority in the province. Lamoureux is on his second term as MP for the riding long held by Dr. Rey Pagtakhan. Lamoureux got 25,407 (68.9%), Abad got 4,543 votes (1.45%) and the Conservatives had 5,193 (15.3).
The Conservatives Julius Tiangson in Mississauga Centre in Ontario, got the most impressive showing for the five candidates, garnering 17,304 losing to the Liberals Omar Allghabra’s 28,735 votes.The NDP had 4,935. Tiangson, who campaigned on a pro-life platform and the foreign credentials issue was heavily supported by Campaign Life.
Mario Rimbao, NDP, finished a distant third with 3,889 votes in Mount Royal, Quebec to the Liberal’s Anthony Housefather’s 24,317 and the Conservatives 18,213.
In British Columbia’s Vancouver-Kingsway riding Conservative Jojo Quimpo finished a distant third ( 9,538) to incumbent NDP Don Davies (20,663). Liberal Steven Kou got 12, 625, one of the few in his party who failed to go with the red sweep of the province.
In the Nepean, Ontario riding, independent Jesus Cosico got 416 votes to the Liberal’s 34,017.
Municipal elections: winners:
Nurse Rommel Silverio was elected in his first bid for city councillor for Yellowknife.
Adminstrator Jocelyn Curteanu got reelected for a second term to the Whitehorse City council.
Curteanu is active in the community as a member of the Yukon Cultures Connect, Whitehorse Regional Women’s Committee, Racially Visible Committee, Canadian Filipino Association of the Yukon, and the Yukon Area Council.
She returned to the Yukon from Alberta in 2011, making the decision that Whitehorse is where she and her family feel most at home and where she wants to raise her children and invest in the community.
Curteanu lived in Whitehorse from 2003-2006 when she was assigned the operations of the local Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) office. After 14 years working in Audit and Client Services with the CRA, she resigned as a Senior Business Resource Officer in Calgary in favour of taking a job in Whitehorse as the Regional Administrative Coordinator for the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency (CANNOR), an organization focused on northern economic development.
Nurse Edwin Empinado was reelected for a second term in Kitimat City.
He works at the Kitimat General Hospital as an operating room nurse.
He is the president of the Filipino Canadian Association of Kitimat (FCAK). As Kitimat councilor, he sits in the Advisory Commission of Persons with Disability and works with the mayor on the Housing Task Force in Kitimat and Northern Development Initiative Trust in BC. A member of the Rotary Club of Kitimat, he hd organized medical missions and donations of medical equipments to the Philippines.
The three join Councillor Mike Pagtakhan of Winnipeg who has been elected for three terms.
Pagtakhan is the first and only Filipino elected to an urban city council.
Two incumbents sit in the Manitoba Legislature – Flor Marcelino and brother-in-law Ted Marcelino, both NDPs, and Mable Elmore, NDP in British Columbia.