Conservative candidate Brian Storseth celebrated a successful election campaign last night with supporters, joining Conservatives across the country in a majority win. Storseth was returned as MP for Westlock - St. Paul to Ottawa for a third term.
Unofficial election results available Monday night at press time showed Storseth in the lead against NDP, Green, and Liberal candidates.
As results continued to come into Election Canada on Monday, unofficial results quickly indicated a Conservative majority government, which Storseth called “a step forward for Canada,” at the Conservative rallying point at the St. Paul Golf Club.
“What it shows me is that Canadians accept the job that we’ve been doing for the last five and half years. They’ve given us the stamp of approval on our economic stimulus plan and the work we’ve been doing to make sure that Canada comes out of this global economic recession at the top of the world.”
Electoral success shows that Canadians are “not afraid of us. They know that we’ve got a record, they know the direction we’re going to continue to move the country in.”
The MP credited the Conservative Party’s “open, honest, transparent record” for his and his party’s success at the polls. “It’s going to be a hard job for the next four years but we need to stay focused.” He also thanked a room full of supporters for working on the campaign in a speech at the club.
Storseth’s electoral victory came only days after his appendix ruptured after the election forum in St. Paul on Wednesday. Storseth’s wife Amel drove him to Edmonton to receive emergency surgery early Thursday morning. The re-elected MP lost four days on the campaign trail and missed a few planned events in the riding, he said.
The biggest surprise of the election was the collapse of the Bloc Québécois, he said. “I think it’s great news for Canadians that we were able to get rid of a separatist entity and have stronger federalist representation across our great country.”
The Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe lost his own seat to the NDP.
Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff was defeated in his Toronto riding of Etobicoke - Lakeshore by Conservatice challenger Bernard Trottier, who grew up in St. Paul.
“We were pushing water uphill. We knew that at the start,” said Westlock - St. Paul Liberal candidate Rob Fox.
He said the Liberals likely went to more doors in the riding than the other candidates combined, as they went to 20,000 homes.
“To change what I believe in, I wouldn’t change what we did,” he said. “I still think our policies, our platform was better.”
Fox said the collapse of the national Liberal campaign did not help him.
He said the Conservatives gave people something they wanted. They were able to connect with people where the Liberals couldn’t, which surprised him, he said.
“We ran a clean campaign and we went to a lot of the communities across the district, it just didn’t resonate, didn’t catch.”
Fox said it was strange because the local Liberal party received more money and had more people join, yet it did not translate into votes.
But he said he believes the party can be stronger.
Fox congratulated Storseth and mentioned how Green Party candidate Lisa Grant did as much as she could and ran for the right reasons.
As for his next steps, Fox said his wife said if he won they would go on holidays and if they lost they would also go on holidays.
“So we’re going on holidays.”
At press time, unofficial results had the Conservatives with 165 seats, the NDP with 105, Liberals with 34, Bloc Québécois with 3, and Green Party with one.
Green Party candidate Lisa Grant had to settle for last spot in the constituency, garnering just four per cent of the vote at press time. However, there was some reason for celebration as party leader Elizabeth May won the Green Party’s first and only seat in the B.C. riding of Saanich-Gulf Island.
“It’s a foot in the door,” Grant said of May’s win.
She said one of the biggest challenges facing the Green Party in the campaign was a lack of national media attention.
“The national media like to pretend we don’t exist. I’m baffled by that.” Grant said, adding that while local media in the Westlock - St. Paul riding gave her party equal play as the other candidates, the Green Party platform was largely ignored at the national level.
Grant expressed surprise that local New Democrat Party candidate Lyndsey Ellen Henderson managed to take second spot in the polls considering “she didn’t show up for anything.”
Henderson ran a low profile campaign staying away from the forums and not responding to requests from the media for interviews.
After the speech from the throne, Storseth expects the government to re-table the budget it presented this spring before the election.
