Canadian Conservatives Score First Jewish MP

Riding a groundswell of support for the Conservative Party that will allow Prime Minister Stephen Harper to preside over his first-ever majority government, Toronto businessman and author Mark Adler won in the York Centre electoral district Monday, setting him up to become his party’s first-ever Jewish MP.

Adler trounced longtime Liberal MP Ken Dryden with 48.3 percent of the vote.

Nationally, Conservatives took 54 percent of the seats in Parliament with about 40 percent of the vote. Liberals came in third behind the New Democratic Party.

Still, Liberals were able to hold on to some seats, including in Quebec’s Mont Royal district, represented by Jewish MP Irwin Cotlar for more than a decade. Cotlar successfully fended off a challenge by Conservative candidate Saulie Zajdel, a Chabad-Lubavitch Chasid and director of the Jewish Rehabilitation Hospital in Laval.