On a night of Conservative disappointment, Rob Morrison showed the party's support remains unimpeachable in Columbia-Kootenays-Southern Rockies.
Morrison won his third straight election Monday night in the federal election. He finished with 35,478 votes from 304-of-310 polls reporting in, or 50.6 per cent of total ballots cast as of Tuesday morning.
“We could tell when we went to the doors that people really wanted change and they were really supportive of what Conservatives were going to do," Morrison said at his election night party in Cranbrook.
"It was a team effort here and we knocked on thousands and thousands of doors to find out what was important. … I’m really proud to be the Columbia-Kootenay-Southern Rockies Member of Parliament and I will work really hard for everyone here."
The Conservatives, who were once vying for control of the government as former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's support sagged, were forced to settle for second place after Mark Carney and the Liberal Party stormed back to win the election. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre also appeared to lose his own seat in Parliament, as did NDP leader Jagmeet Singh.
Morrison admitted that, despite his own victory, he wanted a better national result for his party.
“I was hoping for a lot more, especially with some things we’ve talked about with the gun legislation and things that I’m worried if we don’t win, the Liberals will quash us on. But I also worry about the economy and we need to get people to work; we don’t need to spend money. We need to get people working to get the tax base and I worry about that."
Liberals' Reggie Goldsbury (19,623 votes) finished second ahead of the NDP's Kallee Lins (12,581), followed by Steven Maffioli of the Green Party (1,044), independent candidate Jim Wiedrick (842), and Laurie Baird of the People's Party of Canada (501).
The riding changed to include Trail and drop Revelstoke and Golden ahead of Monday's federal election. But the result stayed the same as Morrison won his third consecutive election to maintain the riding as a Conservative stronghold.
The riding followed a nationwide trend of NDP voters turning to the Liberals. If it holds, Goldsbury's second-place result would be the first time in 25 years a Liberal has finished better than third in the riding formerly known as Kootenay Columbia.
Goldsbury conceded it was a difficult challenge to upend the Conservative vote, but said the Liberals deserved credit for convincing NDP voters to change their colours.
"Liberals came second in the riding because at the local level and first at the federal level we had the right candidate at the right time. Locally here, with myself having such strong connections in all of our riding, professional and personal relationships, we showed that the progressive vote does not have to stay with the NDP."
But Morrison also likely benefited by the collapse of the People's Party (PPC), which was forced to run Baird after Andrew Skinner pulled out of the campaign early on. Baird, who lives in the Okanagan, took part in no debates and did not campaign in the riding.
In 2021, PPC candidate Sarah Bennett finished with 4,467 votes. Those voters probably turned to Morrison, who has tentatively increased his margin of victory by nearly 10 per cent from four years ago.
“It was a short election period," said Morrison. "We went as hard as we could the whole time and I’m really proud of the team that I’ve been working with and really proud of the people who were listening and we listened as well and I think the results show it."
