The Liberal candidate for Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound is proud of the campaign that she ran for the 2025 federal election, despite being unsuccessful at winning the riding.
Anne Marie Watson finished second in Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound to Conservative Alex Ruff, who was re-elected as MP. But Watson managed much better numbers over her campaign in 2021, with her vote total nearly doubling and share of the vote up to over 39 per cent. The problem, was it didn’t come at the expense of the Conservative candidate — Ruff’s vote share also increased in this election.
In an interview with Bayshore News, Watson says that this election campaign had a different feel than the previous one.
“This one had energy and positivity, and there was a sense of Canadian pride and Canadian unity in this one that was absolutely lacking in 2021.”
She says that a big part of this election was focused on trade issues between Canada and the United States, and tariffs imposed by U.S President Donald Trump’s administration, and the Canadian unity that came as a result.
“There’s no question in my mind that [U.S. President] Trump and the tariffs and the trade issues caused a huge effect,” she says. “I think that people who may have never voted Liberal before voted Liberal for the first time because they looked at the two leaders, and they saw the one that they felt was a better choice to be able to stand up to Donald Trump, deal with the tariffs, enlarge our trading partners across Europe and deal with these things at home to make us a better, stronger economy and I think that’s where we’re going with this. I think that’s what they wanted, and we saw that in people that we talked to.”
Watson says that regardless of party leanings, comments from Trump about making Canada the 51st state of the U.S. struck a chord with voters across the country.
She was also able to enjoy a better finish in this campaign compared to 2021. In the last election, Watson finished with 25.2% of the vote, losing out to incumbent Conservative MP Alex Ruff, who finished with 49.2% of the vote. As of 12:30am after polls closed, she received around 37% of the vote.
She says that she has her team to thank for their support. “I feel immense pride in the way that we ran our campaign. I am so pleased and honoured by the people who put their trust in me and came out here to work as volunteers.”
In total, her campaign team included around 140 volunteers.
Watson says that she’s glad to see the Liberal Party of Canada projected to form the next government.
