Kristina Tesser Derksen, Liberal Party of Canada candidate for Milton East-Halton Hills South in the 2025 federal election
This spring, the federal election for the brand new riding of Milton East – Halton Hills South became national news.
While incumbent Milton Member of Parliament (MP) Adam van Koeverden cruised to a win for his new riding of Burlington North – Milton West, Conservative candidate Parm Gill and Liberal candidate Kristina Tesser Derksen were battling it out for their respective seat.
Originally, it was announced that Gill had won the riding, and would be returning as a representative for Milton (and Halton Hills). He had previously served as the Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) but stepped down to run in this federal election. His role as Milton MPP was filled by former Milton Councillor Zee Hamid.
However, after the routine validation process, it was determined that Tesser Derksen had actually won – by 29 votes. With the margin of victory being less than 0.1% of the total voter turnout for the riding, this led to a mandatory judicial recount. After two weeks, it was official: Kristina Tesser Derksen was the first MP for the new riding of Milton East – Halton Hills South.
After a month of getting settled into the new role, Tesser Derksen says she’s finally catching up.
When it was announced that Tesser Derksen would become an MP, that left the Town of Milton with an interesting decision. She was three years into her second term as a Town Councillor for Milton’s Ward 1. What would happen with her seat?
Halton Hills had a similar decision this past winter when Councillor Joseph Racinsky ran and won in the provincial election, become an MPP for Wellington – Halton Hills. Their Council opted to name his replacement, selecting the person who placed third in the Ward to sit next to the other elected Councillor.
Milton’s Council had a meeting at the end of May to make this decision. After hearing from several delegations, the decision was made at a vote of 5-3 to hold a municipal by-election this fall.
MP Tesser Derksen wasn’t surprised to see Council go that route, noting that there’s a cost to democracy.
Anyone who has been following Tesser Derksen over the last decade or so knows that she’s a very busy person. She left her previous career in the funeral industry to become a lawyer, and then while building that career, she became a local Councillor. In 2023, she even opened her own law practice. She says that office is still running while she takes on this new role as MP, and offers praise to the staff for keeping things running for her. They’ll see how it goes over the summer before making a final decision, but she concedes that it could be hard to keep both going at the same time.
A large part of her job as a local Councillor was taking on many volunteer roles with local boards. If you’ve attended a Townsend Smith Foundation event, you know how pivotal she is to the organization. MP Tesser Derksen says she’ll continue with her work with local non-profits, but will need to remain hands off with certain aspects.
Looking ahead to what’s next, she says her goal is to help her constituents. If by the end of her roughly four year term she can have the residents of Milton and Georgetown reflecting on the years saying, “she helped me when I needed it,” then she knows that her job was done as their representative at the federal level. Tesser Derksen will be focusing on the Two-Way, All-Day GO Train that people have been clamoring for, as well as weighing in on global economic issues with this new Carney-administration.
Residents can reach out to MP Tesser Derksen by email. She’s in the process of opening a new office, which will also make in-person communication easier for when she’s in the area.
If you have a news tip or story idea, you can now send us a heads up via email at:
- News1013@LocalRadio.ca (Milton)
- News1015@LocalRadio.ca (Orangeville)
- News92@LocalRadio.ca (South Simcoe)
- Rick.Sargent@LocalRadio.ca (Bolton)
If you’d like to get ahold of me personally, shoot me a message at Cameron.Wilkinson@LocalRadio.ca. We’re in the business of content creation, so no idea is a bad idea.
