Monica Lamb-Yorski
Angie Mindus
Staff Writers
Justin Trudeau is Canada’s new prime minister after the Liberals emerged with an unexpected 184-seat majority in Monday’s federal election.
As the 43-year-old son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau took to the podium to address the country, he said the victory was about the voters and volunteers who wanted a country that is positive, ambitious and hopeful.
“My friends, we beat fear with hope, we beat cynicism with hard work,” Trudeau said. “We beat negative, divisive politics with a positive vision that brings Canadians together.”
Nationally the Conservatives won 99 seats. It was later announced that Stephen Harper would be stepping down as the party’s leader.
The NDP took 44 seats, down from 95, while the Bloc Québécois garnered 10 and the Green Party, one.
The federal election results were all the talk at local coffee shops around Williams Lake Tuesday morning.
“I feel great because I hated Harper,” said Elmer Jensen, when asked how he felt about the election results.
Jensen said he didn’t like Harper’s controlling manner, his divisiveness of the country, legislation surrounding privacy, economic reforms and his foreign policy.
“I don’t think we should be in Syria and all those places,” Jensen said.
Miles St Amand said watching the Liberals rule with a majority government will be interesting.
“I kind of wish Trudeau would have got a minority government to get his feet wet first, but we’ll see how it goes.”
While the Liberals swept most of the country, Saskatchewan, Alberta and B.C.’s Interior stayed Conservative, with Conservative Todd Doherty winning with 19,148 votes, according to preliminary results.
Doherty, who is originally from Williams Lake, began pursuing the post once outgoing Conservative MP Dick Harris announced he would be retiring and by Christmas 2014 had garnered the nomination.
Doherty did not respond to requests for an interview by press time, but on his Facebook page at noon Tuesday posted while he had so much he’d like to say only two words were necessary.
“On behalf of Kelly, Jordan, Joshua, Kassi, Kaitlyn and I ... thank you.”
Liberal candidate Tracy Calogheros emerged in second place garnering 16,822 votes.
On Tuesday morning she said she hated losing but couldn’t be upset because of the Liberal sweep.
The NDP’s third place resulted in 13,806 votes, and candidate Trent Derrick said he was proud of his party’s gains in the riding, and happy Canada has a new government.
Green Party candidate Richard Jaques received 1,845 votes, Independent Sheldon Clare got 656, Apolitical candidate Gordon Campbell received 399 and Christian Heritage Party’s Adam De Kroon garnered 325.
In the Kamloops Thompson Cariboo riding, Conservative Cathy McLeod got a third mandate while in the Prince George-Peace River-Northern Rockies riding Conservative incumbent Bob Zimmer also kept his seat.
Last week students in School District 27 participated in a student vote at many schools.
The student vote in the Cariboo-Prince George riding put the Liberals first with 1,223 votes, NDP second with 737, Conservatives third with 735, Green Party fourth with 441, Independent fifth with 139, Christian Heritage Party sixth with 133 and Apolitical seventh with 70 votes.
Preliminary results show 67.99 per cent of eligible voters in our riding participated in the election, up from 54.3 per cent in 2011.