NDP's Brian Masse takes Windsor West, heads back to Ottawa

The NDP's Brian Masse is headed back to Parliament Hill for a sixth term.

The long-time incumbent easily won the riding of Windsor West during Canada's 42nd general election.

He beat Conservative candidate Henry Lau, Liberal David Sundin, Cora LaRussa of the Green Party and Margaret Villamizar of the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada.

Masse held a comfortable lead over his opponents early in the evening.

With more than 82.6 per cent of polls reporting, Masse drew about 51 per cent of the vote.

That put him well ahead of Sundin, who received about one in four of all ballots cast at that point, while Lau, received just over one-fifth of the vote.

He's part of a trio of local NDP MP's elected to Parliament, meaning Windsor and Essex County will not have a government representative.

"People vote for something down here and that's really important," Masse said. "When you have the argument that you have to be at the table to get things done, it's such an affront to democracy."

"We'll go there with a positive attitude and we'll go there with the intent to work with everybody," Masse said.

The New Democrats held 95 seats at the dissolution of Parliament. Monday saw the party fall to third place in the House of Commons, as they lost more than 50 of those seats.

"It's unfortunate but Canadians are speaking. For whatever reason, the platform we have didn't resonate as well as we thought it would. We have to take responsibility for that as a party," Masse said.

Masse was first elected to the House of Commons in 2002. He is also the first member of the NDP elected federally to represent Windsor West.

Masse has served as critic for Small Business, for Tourism, for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, and for the Great Lakes and the CanadaU.S. Border.

He has also served 12 years as vice-chair of the CanadaU.S. Inter-Parliamentary Group, co-chairs the All-Party Border Caucus, and chairs the NDP Auto Caucus.

Masse has been pushing for a new international border crossing and trade route in the WindsorDetroit region, something the Conservatives made happen with the announcement of the $2-billion Gordie Howe International Bridge.

There was little doubt Masse would win the riding, according to polls heading into election day. The website threehundredeight.com had given him an 87 per cent chance of winning the seat.