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Federal Election 2025 News  

Former MP Tracy Gray entitled to $104K severance package

Gray to get large severance

Former Kelowna-Lake Country MP Tracy Gray isn’t leaving public life totally empty handed.

Gray, who lost her seat in last month’s federal election to Liberal challenger Stephen Fuhr, does not qualify for an MP pension since she failed to serve the full six years needed to qualify.

Gray, who was elected Oct. 21, 2019, served just five years, six months, 189 days.

However, Members of Parliament who either resign or are defeated prior to hitting that six year benchmark are entitled to a severance package equal to a portion of their yearly MP salary.

In the case of Gray, according to calculations released by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, that works out to a severance cheque of $104,900.

Plus, she is entitled to be reimbursed for the amount she paid into the MP pension fund.

If in the future she decides to run again for federal office and wins a seat, Gray would be entitled to restart the pension clock, but would have to reimburse the pension plan the amount she previously paid in.

Retired NDP MP Richard Cannings, who represented South Okanagan-West Kootenay for nine-and-a-half years is entitled to a full government pension.

It is estimated the 71-year-old Cannings will receive a pension starting at $54,000 a year, with a lifetime payout to age 90 of $1.2 million.

The 110 Members of Parliament who either retired or went down to defeat April 28, will collect about $5 million annually with a cumulative total of about $187 million by age 90. An additional $6.6 million in severance cheques will also be written to those who failed to hit the six year threshold.

Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau receives both a severance and a pension. The severance is estimated at $104,900 while the pension, which includes both MP and Prime Minister pension, amounts to $141,000 annually or $8.4 million to age 90.

“Taxpayers shouldn’t feel too bad for the politicians who lost the election because they’ll be cashing big severance or pension cheques,” said Franco Terrazzano, federal director of the CTF.

“Thanks to past pension reforms, taxpayers will not have to shoulder as much of the burden as they used to. But there’s more work to do to make politician pay affordable for taxpayers.

“Taxpayers need to see leadership at the top and that means reforming pensions and ending the pay raises MPs take every year.”



Liberal candidate says judicial recount ordered in Ontario riding he narrowly lost

Judicial recount ordered

A Liberal candidate who lost to his Conservative rival by just 77 votes in the federal election says his request for a judicial recount has been granted.

Irek Kusmierczyk, the Liberal incumbent in Windsor—Tecumseh—Lakeshore, argues in a social media post today that several ballots were "wrongly rejected."

He says that the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ordered a judicial recount to give the community "confidence" in the election result.

Kusmierczyk says he will "absolutely and unequivocally" accept the results of the recount.

Elections Canada says that Conservative candidate Kathy Borrelli took the riding with 32,062 votes, or 45.8 per cent of the vote.

Kusmierczyk, who won the seat in 2019 and 2021, got 31,985 votes, or 45.7 per cent of the vote.

The Liberal candidate said in a social media post earlier this week that the "razor thin" margin of victory for the Conservative candidate was just seven votes short of Elections Canada's threshold for triggering an automatic recount.



Vernon-Lake Country-Monashee student's voted Tory in mock-federal election

Students voted Tory too

As voters across the country cast ballots in last week's federal election so too did students, for educational purposes – including those in the Vernon School District.

According to Student Vote Canada, students in the Vernon-Lake Country-Monashee riding's mock election would have would have cast their ballots the same way of-age voters did. Votes from the 17 participating schools in the riding show students would have elected Conservative Scott Anderson, who took the riding in the real election.

"I'm extremely proud that I won the student vote in this riding. In some sense it's just as important to me as winning the general election," said Anderson on his Facebook page.

Student Vote Canada is run in partnership with Elections Canada to give students first-hand democratic experience rather than reading about it in a textbook.

Vernon-Lake Country-Monashee riding had 21 schools request ballots and 17 schools took part and sent data to the student vote.

Out of those 17 schools, all but two of them elected Scott Anderson with the Conservative party in their mock election. Both W.L. Seaton Secondary School and Beairsto Elementary cast more ballots for Anna Warwick Sears with the Liberal party.

While most schools had a fairly close gap between the Conservatives and Liberals with the NDP and Green candidates getting less support, similar to the actual election results, there were notable exceptions.

Vernon Christian School threw its support behind the Tory candidate giving Anderson 80 per cent of their mock ballots.

Nakusp Elementary had a fairly even vote split amongst all four candidates: Anderson with 28.05 per cent, Warwick Sears with 19.51 per cent, NDP’s Leah Main with 26.83 per cent and Green party’s Blair Visscher with 25.61 per cent.



Nelson councillor shares thoughts as local Kootenay ridings hold steady

"Not a left-to-right" thing

The federal election has ended, and across the Kootenays the newly drawn ridings have kept everything relatively the same for the region.

Nelson Coun. Keith Page acknowledged that the Conservative Party picked up more seats across the province during this election, but he doesn't necessarily see it as an endorsement of Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre.

“I think a lot of times you see that people are looking for adults, and it's not a left-to-right thing,” he said during a Monday night gathering for Columbia-Kootenay-Southern Rockies NDP candidate, Kallee Lins.

Page was re-elected to Nelson city council in 2022.

“People say, 'I want Conservative values, but I just don't want a child crashing around,' which is what Pierre was offering.”

Conservatives gained ground in rural ridings across Highway 3 and Highway 6. Incumbent Rob Morrison took the win for the Columbia-Kootenay-Southern Rockies riding — formerly the Kootenay-Columbia — sticking with the Conservatives for another term.

On another note, he said that the Highway 3 corridor has a mix of rural and cultural communities, boasting several resource industries. Adding that these voters were choosing candidates who spoke to their everyday realities, rather than focusing on federal politics.

In B.C.,the Liberals won 42.2 per cent of the federal vote, while the Conservatives trailed not far behind with 41.5 per cent. NDP candidates snagged around 13.3 per cent, and the Green Party held on to a single riding with three per cent of the vote.



Voter turnout nothing special in Kamloops-Thompson-Nicola

Voter turnout close to 70%

Nearly 70 per cent of Kamloops-Thompson-Nicola voters cast a ballot in the 45th federal election, which didn’t return a record voter turnout nationally despite robust advanced poll numbers and a threat to Canada's sovereignty from U.S. President Donald Trump.

Early results for the riding show 62,096 of 89,245 registered electors (69.58 per cent) voted in Monday’s election in the reconfigured Kamloops-Thompson-Nicola riding. The numbers do not include those who registered to vote on election day.

The total is a 3.5-point increase from the last election in 2021, which saw about 66 per cent of voters in Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo turn out to vote.

Numbers were even higher in the Kamloops-Shuswap-Central Rockies riding, which includes eastern Kamloops, Salmon Arm, Revelstoke and Golden. Turnout was 73.22 per cent, with 67,496 of 92,185 registered voters casting ballots.

That represents a significant jump. Under its former name, North Okanagan-Shuswap, the riding recorded voter turnout a shade under 60 per cent in 2021.

Two thirds voted

Robert Hanlon, Thompson River University political science professor, told Castanet Kamloops he doesn't think this year's voter turnout should be compared to those in past elections considering the redrawn riding.

“We might have to wait for another election cycle to get a clear picture on voter turnout increases or decreases,” Hanlon said.

However, he noted the national voter turnout is the highest recorded in 32 years.

Elections Canada said more than 67 per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot across Canada in the federal election — more than 19.2 million people.

“We haven't had that high of a national turnout since 1993,” Hanlon said.

“Clearly there's been a big uptick, and that's clearly to do with the implications of Trump and the kind of galvanization of people around their different party bases for this election, so it's quite interesting.”

Lots going on

Hanlon said there were similar economic and sovereignty issues at play in the Canadian political landscape to trade, tariffs and annexation in the form of Quebec separatism and a recently negotiated free trade deal with the U.S.

“The political atmosphere in the early 90s is very different than it is today, but you can see when there's big questions of unity around the country and sovereignty itself, people head to the polls,” Hanlon said, adding crises tend to be very politically motivating.

When it comes to the lower total numbers in the Kamloops-Thompson-Nicola riding given the crisis issues at play, Hanlon said the area is generally considered a Conservative stronghold which may generate voter apathy.

“Having ridings that are so consistently [voting] the same way might create kind of a bit more less incentive for other voters to head to the polls," he said.

While the 2025 election was widely expected to see increased turnout, it did not surpass the record set nationally in 1958, when 79.4 per cent of eligible electors voted.

But turnout was higher than in the last federal election, when 62.6 per cent of eligible voters headed to the polls.

With votes still being counted, voter turnout still has some room to climb.



Ontario, Prairies blocked Liberals from an election-night majority blowout

Falling short in Ontario

The Liberals rose from the ashes under Prime Minister Mark Carney in a stunning reversal of fortunes this year, but the party's failure to sweep many of the ridings it sought Monday night denied it a resounding majority mandate.

A big part of that failure happened in Ontario, where the party lost many incumbents — even as Carney called for a strong mandate to deal with the threat posed by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Abacus Data CEO David Coletto said the party fell short in Ontario, losing seats in the Greater Toronto Area and York region, and failing to break through in the Prairies.

While there's widespread consensus that Trump was behind the Liberals' stunning victory, other factors put wind in the Conservatives' sails in Ontario.

"I have been arguing for most of this campaign that it wasn't one ballot question. It wasn't just Trump defining this," Coletto said.

"As the campaign went on, and even as Trump inserted himself into those last few days, particularly on election day, there were still half in this country and many in Ontario and those ridings around Toronto where the cost of living and the price of housing remain big issues, and so change was a bigger factor in those places."

Party rank-and-file spent Tuesday worrying about how stable the new government would be. Counting continued into the day and key seats with narrow margins remained in a state of flux until Elections Canada arrived at a result of 169 seats — just shy of the 172 needed for a majority.

The party was angling to add about six seats more to their total count in Ontario, but instead dropped to 69 from the 78 they won in 2021.

The party lost more than a dozen previously held ridings throughout the province while also winning new seats.

Dan Arnold, a former Liberal pollster now at Pollara Strategic Insights, said that while the Liberals made the gains they needed in Quebec and B.C., holding their ground in Ontario would have given them a comfortable majority.

"The Liberals ran up the score in downtown Toronto this time. NDP voters there flocked their way en masse," he said. "They obviously had a phenomenal night in Ottawa, winning Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's riding, and they actually picked up a few more seats in Eastern Ontario too — Peterborough, Bay of Quinte."

But the Liberals lost six ridings in the 905 area and in the Golden Horseshoe that former prime minister Justin Trudeau had won over three elections, Arnold said.

Former cabinet minister Ya'ara Saks lost York Centre to Conservative candidate and former Tory MPP Roman Baber — a seat held by the Liberals since 2015.

Prominent GTA incumbent MPs like Francesco Sorbara in Vaughan—Woodbridge, Majid Jowhari in Richmond Hill South and Liberal Bryan May in Cambridge all fell to Conservative challengers.

In Peel region, former cabinet minister Kamal Khera lost Brampton—West to Conservative Amarjeet Gill — a seat that the Liberals had won by just over 25 percentage points in 2021.

Arnold said results like that one may signal the Liberals struggled with multicultural electorates this time.

"If you look at ridings nationally, where there's large South Asian populations, the Liberal vote went down a lot compared to the last election, and the same thing would be true with ridings with large Chinese populations, including Markham and Richmond Centre in B.C.," he said.

The Liberals also had their eye on doubling their Alberta seat count in Edmonton and Calgary. They fielded current mayor and former Liberal cabinet minister Amarjeet Sohi in Edmonton Southeast, and Carney campaigned for him.

But while some polling projections suggested the party could walk away with as many as seven or eight seats in the province, they only managed to elect two Alberta MPs: Corey Hogan in Calgary Confederation and Eleanor Olszewski in Edmonton Centre. And they lost incumbent George Chahal in Calgary McKnight.

In B.C., Carney travelled multiple times to Vancouver Island, where Liberal Will Greaves managed to unseat NDP incumbent Laurel Collins in Victoria, while former Liberal MP Stephen Fuhr took Kelowna.

Coletto said those are two B.C. seats that boast large populations of seniors, showing how the demographic story of boomers rallying around Carney's Liberals played out regionally. Meanwhile, the Conservatives' efforts to court private sector and unionized workers "paid dividends," he said.

"You saw them pick up seats in northern Ontario, Southwestern Ontario and in the interior of British Columbia," he said. "That was going to be part of their road to victory but that obviously fell short because they couldn't convert in Toronto and the Lower Mainland."

While the NDP fell everywhere, many downtown progressives flipped to the Liberals. The Conservatives "appear to have picked up some of those NDP voters" in more blue-collar ridings, "and that could be a bit of what happened in Southwest Ontario," Arnold said.

Aggregate polling suggested the Liberals entered the campaign marching toward a majority — momentum that waned by the end of the campaign.

Lawrence LeDuc, professor emeritus of political science at University of Toronto, said the short campaign may be what ultimately kept the Liberals in power as the polls tightened significantly toward the end of the campaign — from about a spread of about five or six points between the two main parties to two points over the course of a week.

"In polling terms, that's quite a move and it suggests that the momentum the Liberals had at the beginning of the campaign was probably beginning to dissipate," he said. "They were probably pretty smart to opt for the shortest possible campaign because they might not have been able to sustain that momentum for another week."

The prime minister opted not to hold a press conference the day after the vote but told reporters in French Tuesday morning in Ottawa that he's feeling upbeat, with "lots to do, of course."

Carney warned in his election-night speech that the coming days and weeks will not be easy as Canada returns to the challenge of convincing Trump to back away from his punishing tariff agenda.



Carney, Trump have agreed to meet in person, PMO says after post-election call

Carney, Trump will meet

The Prime Minister's Office says Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump have agreed to meet in person in the near future.

An account of a phone call between the two leaders, issued today by the PMO, says Trump congratulated Carney on his federal election victory.

It adds that the two agreed on the importance of Canada and the United States working together — as independent, sovereign nations — for their mutual betterment.

The federal election was fought largely over which party leader could best handle Trump and his threats against Canada's economy and sovereignty.

In his victory speech, Carney pledged to unite a divided country in the face of ongoing tensions with the United States.

He promised to lead a government that represents all Canadians and said the country works when Canadians pull together.



Vernon-Lake Country-Monashee voter turnout hit 72.78%

72.78% voter turnout

According to Elections Canada 72.78 per cent of eligible voters in the Vernon-Lake Country-Monashee riding cast a ballot in yesterday's federal election.

All 239 ballot boxes have been counted and 67,093 out of 92,192 eligible voters turned out. The number does not include electors who registered on election day.

In the 2021 federal election the now redistributed North Okanagan-Shuswap riding had a voter turnout of 64.8 per cent.

Today, votes continue to be counted in tight ridings across the country, but here in Vernon-Lake Country-Monashee the Conservative Party’s Scott Anderson was elected with 33,852 or 50.5 per cent of the vote.

The area’s Liberal candidate Anna Warwick Sears received 28,714 votes or 42.8 per cent.

In a post to the local Liberal Party riding association at about midnight, Warwick Sears congratulated Liberal leader Mark Carney on his election.

“While this wasn’t the local result we had hoped for, we’re proud of the victories we achieved elsewhere — and we owe it all to our amazing volunteers. Your hard work, commitment, and passion were inspiring. Thank you for being part of this movement!” Reads the post attributed to Warwick Sears and her team.

NDP's Leah Main had 3,422 ballots cast for her and Green Party's Blair Visscher received 1,105 votes.



Doug Ford says he is focused on post-election unity, after MP accuses him of sabotage

Ford accused of sabotage

Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he wants to focus on unity the day after the federal election, refusing to shoot back at comments from a Conservative MP calling the premier a "problem" and an opportunist.

Jamil Jivani, who won Bowmanville-Oshawa North, said in an interview with CBC on election night that Ford inserted himself in the federal campaign and Conservatives should not be taking advice from him.

During the election, Ford's campaign manager Kory Tenycke publicly slammed Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's campaign for failing to pivot to focus on the tariff threat from U.S. President Donald Trump, and Ford chimed in to say "sometimes the truth hurts."

But Ford would not take Jivani's bait in the wake of Poilievre's loss, saying only that all Canadians have to unite against the real threat, which is the economic harm that will be caused by Trump's tariffs.

Ford also says he looks forward to working with the victors, Mark Carney's Liberals, to meet a "crucial" moment for the province and for Canada.

Ford is calling on Carney to make good on promises to help tear down internal trade barriers and speed approvals for resource development projects, including in the mineral-rich Ring of Fire region in northern Ontario.

The premier is also urging the new Liberal government to get infrastructure such as pipelines, highways and rail lines built to help Canadian goods get to market and reduce reliance on the United States.



NDP Columbia-Kootenay-Southern Rockies candidate said she has 'no regrets'

NDP candidate: no regrets

NDP candidate for the Columbia-Kootenay-Southern Rockies, Kallee Lins, said she has no regrets about her campaign in the 2025 federal election.

"No regrets in the sense that I think we covered a lot with what we had," said Lins minutes after her concession speech.

Lins thanked her friends, family and her team for all of their hard work and dedication during the campaign in her concession speech to Conservative incumbent Rob Morrison.

She said the only regret she had was not having more time to campaign. The 2025 snap election gave candidates only five weeks to hit the campaign trail.

Morrison has been re-elected in Columbia-Kootenay-Southern Rockies and took home 50.3 per cent of the vote.The Columbia Kootenay Southern Rockies boundary that was previously known as Kootenay-Columbia was redrawn in 2022. The riding lost Golden and Revelstoke but gained Trail and Fruitvale.

Lins said that despite the loss, she believes that her campaign efforts exceeded all expectations with the time that the candidates were given, but added that they could have done so much more with an extra few weeks or month of campaigning. She added that she had contacted Morrison to congratulate him on his win.

Lins said that if the NDP riding will have her she is happy to run in the next election.

"I feel like I should be more disappointed than I am, but the response to the campaign has been so positive and everyone has worked so hard," she said "It feels pretty good."



Caputo overcome with emotion as he wins second term as Kamloops-Thompson-Nicola MP

'Overwhelmed' after victory

It was a sad scene in victory along Seymour Street on Monday as Kamloops-Thompson-Nicola MP Frank Caputo learned he would return to Ottawa for a second term, and ecstasy in defeat a block up on Victoria Street, as Iain Currie lost locally while the Liberals formed government.

The inverse of emotion was apparent as soon as the polls closed at 7 p.m., but Caputo ended up garnering more than half the vote in the Kamloops-Thompson-Nicola riding — collecting more than 31,000 of about 61,000 votes tallied.

“I’m so overwhelmed. It’s going to be such a joy to return to the House of Commons,” Caputo told Castanet a few minutes after his victory was declared.

"I’m going to take tomorrow to clean up, then sleep, then hopefully Wednesday I’ll get back to work.”

Caputo met with a small cohort of supporters in what was a sombre atmosphere inside a vacant storefront at Kamloops Square, while Currie hosted a raucous party in the Terrace Room at the Delta a block up with lower expectations.

Currie was all smiles as he told Castanet Kamloops he expected his campaign would produce a historic share of the vote for the Liberals in this riding — but he wasn’t expecting to win.

“It’s a blue riding in the sense of the MP that we’ve had over the last many years, but it has been a riding that has considerable votes for the left and left centre,” Currie said.

Emotional in victory

Returning to Ottawa in an opposition role once more after his party fell in defeat, Caputo was teary-eyed — a far cry from the ear-to-ear grin he showed when he was first elected in 2021.

“It's not sad — it's overwhelming,” he said. “I’m a bit more emotional this time, I'm not sure why, but, I've got a couple reasons.”

Asked for these reasons, Caputo said there were “some surprises in this campaign” but said it would be “a joy to return to the House of Commons.”

Caputo said he didn’t know what to expect from this election.

“Obviously you always want to form government,” Caputo said.

“Right now I'm proud locally, is what I can say. Of course, we want to win. NDP collapse was really big, but you know, right now there's a lot of emotion coming through and I don't know that I can really put it into words. I need some time to process all of this to be honest with you.”

'So much uncertainty'

Terry Lake, a former Kamloops mayor and B.C. health minister who ran unsuccessfully for the Liberals in the 2019 federal election, said many Canadians are likely frustrated today.

"There’s so much uncertainty in the world right now with what’s going on with Donald Trump, that I think Canadians were hoping that we’d have some certainty after this,” Lake told Castanet.

“And right now, it doesn’t look like we’ll have that certainty.”

Lake commended Currie for a “respectable” runner-up showing in Kamloops-Thompson-Nicola.

“He’s intelligent and a good candidate. I knew he would attract some votes,” he said.

“But that conservative temperament in the Interior of B.C., particularly around Kamloops, is just too much to overcome."

Lake said he’s happy to see the Liberals hang on to power with a minority government.

“If you would have said that three months ago, we would have all been laughing,” he said.

"So much has changed in that time, with the election of Mark Carney as leader and, of course, the situation in the White House with tariffs and talk about threats to Canada’s sovereignty has just changed the picture entirely.”

More than half the votes

Kamloops-Thompson-Nicola voters gave Caputo a stronger mandate than he received in 2021, with more than 51.6 per cent of the vote (31,768 votes with 271 of 272 polls reporting) and the strongest mandate for a Conservative since Cathy McLeod in the 2011 election.

The Liberals had a strong showing locally compared to their previous campaign with 40.1 per cent (24,714 votes) going to Iain Currie — their highest vote total in the last eight elections, compared to previous highs of Steve Powrie’s 21,000-plus in 2015 and Terry Lake’s 19,000-plus in 2019.

The NDP had a historic collapse in the riding with just 5.9 per cent of the vote (3,660 votes) going to Miguel Godau.

In 2021, Caputo won Kamloops-Thomspon-Cariboo with 43 per cent of the vote and 30,000-plus votes, the NDP had 29 per cent (20,000-plus votes) and the Liberals 18 per cent (12,000-plus).

As he restarts his work, Caputo said he will begin by meeting with local government officials. He said he intends bring “the same tenacity as before” to support the residents of the riding.

"Talking to people, meeting with people, working with people," he told Castanet. "My job is to represent the people of Kamloops-Thompson-Nicola.”



Conservative candidate Mel Arnold takes decisive win in Kamloops-Shuswap-Central Rockies

Conservative MP re-elected

Newly re-elected Conservative MP Mel Arnold, who will be returning to Ottawa for the fourth time, says he is looking forward to meeting more residents in his new riding after an "invigorating" campaign.

Arnold celebrated a convincing victory on Monday, taking more than 50 per cent of the vote and winning a Shuswap riding in four straight federal elections.

He was declared the winner of the new Kamloops-Shuswap-Central Rockies riding just before 9 p.m. Monday.

“The first election was, I think, a lot more nail biting for me, because I wasn't sure of what was to come and what to expect,” said Arnold, who gathered with supporters to watch the election results from his Salmon Arm campaign office.

“This one again has been invigorating because of the change in the boundaries.”

The new federal Kamloops-Shuswap-Central Rockies electoral district was created in 2022, and was in effect for the first time this election.

The expansive riding includes part of Kamloops and extends all the way to the Alberta border. It includes the cities of Salmon Arm, Revelstoke and Golden, as well as Enderby and Sicamous.

“Fifty per cent of the population is new to me. I had to get out and get my name known right all the way from Kamloops right through the Alberta border,” Arnold said.

"That work isn't over with. ...I've got to reach out to a lot of new people. I'm really looking forward to meeting with them."

He thanked his volunteers and their families for giving up their time to help him with his campaign.

“It's been an honour to be re-elected,” Arnold said. “I want to thank everyone in the riding for their support.”

Arnold also thanked the other candidates for running, referring to them as “really good people” whom he got to know over the course of the campaign.

“They wanted to serve their country as well," he said.

“It takes a lot of guts to put your name on a ballot. And especially a federal ballot, representing a riding this size."

Runner-up Ken Robertson, who ran for the Liberals, said despite losing his bid, he was happy to see his party's success.

“We have a Liberal leader, which is Mark Carney, who's going to be the next prime minister,” he said. “And yes, we are going to be forming government.”

Robertson secured about 37 per cent of the vote. He said he feels good about his campaign efforts overall.

“I feel I put in a great campaign trying to really make a difference in this community,” Robertson said, adding he felt Arnold had a solid base of support, but he felt he expanded the Liberal base as well.

“When it came to the new minted riding…it just shows that we can truly still have those progressive voters out there,” he added.

NDP candidate Phaedra Idzan received about 6 per cent of the vote. Green Party candidate Owen Madden got approximately 3 per cent and PPC candidate Michael Henry had around 1 per cent.



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