Liberal candidate Pamela Goldsmith-Jones sailed to an easy victory Monday night in West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country, receiving more votes than all of the other candidates combined.
The former West Vancouver mayor will join Prime Minister-Elect Justin Trudeau’s 184-seat Liberal majority government in Ottawa.
Goldsmith-Jones captured 54.7 per cent of the vote – more than doubling Conservative incumbent John Weston’s 26.3 per cent and crushing the NDP and Green Party candidates, whose percentages of votes were in the single digits.
With voter turnout at 73.2 per cent in the riding, Goldsmith-Jones received 35,818 votes, compared to Weston’s 17,191, NDP candidate Larry Koopman’s 6,372 (9.7 per cent), and Green Party candidate Ken Melamed’s 5,821 (8.9 per cent). Robin Kehler of the Marijuana Party garnered 175 votes and Marxist-Leninist Carol-Lee Chapman finished last with 108 votes.
All results are still preliminary and voter turnout does not include electors who registered on election day.
Addressing jubilant supporters amid a sea of red in West Vancouver Monday night, Goldsmith-Jones called being elected “the greatest honour of my life” and “a tremendous responsibility.”
Goldsmith-Jones said she has a “deep respect for our system of government” and its ability to be “a force for good.”
“We stayed on the high road,” she told supporters, adding that people had voted against the “politics of fear and division … it’s not what Canadians believe in.”
“Why did the Canadian cross the road?” she asked at one point during her victory speech. “To get to the middle. Voters in our riding found the middle … that is our greatest strength.”
Saying she expected to speak with Trudeau in the next day or so, Goldsmith-Jones said she was excited about the “fresh approach to government” that 150 new MPs will bring.
Weston, who met Goldsmith-Jones at her campaign office around 9:30 p.m. to offer his congratulations, said he was disappointed both in the local and national results, which saw the Conservatives reduced to 99 seats and Official Opposition status.
“But there was a really strong sense of pride in the room when I gave my concession speech, and it reflected the fact, I think, that we recognize people who voted for us knew precisely why they were voting,” Weston said.
“We had a great team, a hard-working team, and clearly we couldn’t overcome a national trend, which had a lot of people voting against things as opposed to voting for things.”
Weston said he expected Goldsmith-Jones to “serve well.”
“I’m doing something unprecedented in my experience, and a bit unorthodox,” he said. “Usually when an MP is defeated or is succeeded by someone from a different party, all files are shredded. I think that’s poor service, and so we’re going to try to get consent from our constituents so that the files can be passed on to her and that she will continue to serve them well. I’ve told her that, and I know she will do her best.”
Looking back on his two terms as MP, Weston said: “This is a special and unique place, and I love it. It’s been an honour to serve it, and I look forward to playing some other roles in the future. Those are yet to be determined.”
For the immediate future, Weston said he has been working on a book about excellence in public service and will complete it in the next month.
“After that, I can’t tell you. I need to step back and take stock.”
Koopman, who watched the election results on TV in Gibsons with a handful of volunteers, said he was surprised by the number of people who “really were fixated” on strategic voting.
“I didn’t think there would be as much of that. But then I do believe that it was with good intention that they wanted a change, and they would do anything to get Mr. Weston out in this riding,” Koopman said.
“If that meant that our members, or people who believed in the New Democratic Party, had to vote against us and vote for another party – they would do it just to get rid of Harper. It surprised me at how much strength there was in that, strategic voting.
“Unfortunately it didn’t really matter what our policies or our values were, it wasn’t going to make it. So how did I deal with it? I didn’t. I don’t know how you deal with it.”
Going into the race, Koopman said, he was hopeful but not delusional, knowing it would not be easy to win the riding as a New Democrat.
Nationally, the NDP were reduced to 44 seats and received less than 20 per cent of the vote. Asked if he saw a two-party system in Canada’s future, Koopman said: “I don’t think so. I think what we have here is a history of three parties – the three strong parties – and we’ve fluctuated up and down, as New Democrats. From our high of 103 seats last election to quite a disappointing drop – if I can be very frank and honest right now, it’s quite disappointing. But the voters have decided, this is our democracy and I accept it.”
In a concession speech to about 25 supporters at the Brackendale Art Gallery in Squamish, Melamed said voters, desperate to be rid of the Conservatives, found a safe harbour with the Liberals.
“There is really one reason and one reason only that we saw the result that we did tonight – people were desperate,” Melamed said. “They were so desperate and they were so devoid of any hope for any risk taking, they went to the safest place that they could possibly go. We have to respect what they chose. Obviously they chose a Liberal representative, and hats off to Pam and her team. Obviously they did what they needed to do – right place, right time, right circumstances.”
Melamed said the election showed everyone in the riding that the Green Party is “full of promise” and ready to represent the riding.
“I have no regrets, I am really thrilled. It was a tremendous experience for me, really exciting,” he said.
“I don’t know where I am going to go next time. I know there will be another election and there is going to be another provincial election, so hopefully all of us will do what we can to forward what we know is the most powerful movement to take back our country and to take back our planet.”
Voter turnout in the riding in 2011 under the previous boundaries that included Powell River was 64.17 per cent. In that election, Weston finished first with 45.53 per cent of the vote, followed by New Democrat Terry Platt with 23.59 per cent, Liberal Daniel Veniez with 22.47 per cent and Green candidate Brennan Wauters with seven per cent.
With files from Jane Seyd/North Shore News, Christine Wood/Coast Reporter, Jacob Roberts/Coast Reporter and Jennifer Thuncher/Squamish Chief.
