In a night that saw the Liberal Party of Canada steamroll the competition en route to a stunning 184-seat majority, voters in the Banff-Airdrie riding chose stability over change, giving incumbent Blake Richards a third term as a Member of Parliament.
Richards led the polls throughout the night Oct. 19 and was elected with 40,617 votes (64 per cent). His closest competitor, Liberal Party candidate Marlo Raynolds, took in 16,517 votes (26 per cent).
“First and foremost, I was humbled and honoured to once again be elected, to be the voice of the constituents of Banff-Airdrie,” Richards said. “I’m excited and thrilled about the opportunity, to be a strong voice for their needs and their interests.”
The Banff-Airdrie riding has long been a Tory stronghold. Previously the Wild Rose electoral district – boundary changes saw the riding created at the start of the 2015 election – the riding has elected Alliance, Reform and Conservative candidates dating back to 1988.
Richards won elections in 2008 and 2011 with 72.9 and 74.7 per cent respectively. His lower vote totals in this election could be owed to this year’s so-called ‘red wave’ that swept across Canada.
Though Raynolds could not end the more than 25-year conservative grip on the riding, his share of the votes was more than 10 per cent higher than previous challengers have managed.
“We tonight are celebrating the fact, as Canadians have shown right across the country, that a divisive approach to politics and democracy and an approach of fear no longer works,” he told supporters gathered at his campaign rally in Canmore. “I know and understand math a little bit and the 2011 results, the historical results here are a monumental challenge, but to a person and to a volunteer that didn’t matter because we were part of something bigger.
“(Also), we know there is another election in 2019.”
Rounding out the polls was NDP candidate Joanne Boissonneault with 3,951 votes (six per cent) and Green Party candidate Mike MacDonald with 2,383 votes (four per cent).
“I’m really shocked with the results,” Boissonneault said during her campaign rally held at Waves Coffee House in Airdrie. “I really believed I had more support than that.
“I had huge communities that said they would support me and vote for me,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting this.”
Though the Green Party finished with 3.5 per cent of the popular vote in the country, that only translated into one seat in parliament. MacDonald said he hoped this election was the last one under the “first-past-the-post system.”
“Honestly, I think there was so much focus on strategic voting,” he said. “The last number of elections in particular we have seen a lot of that, where people were not necessarily voting for a party or candidate of their first choice, but are actually voting against someone and who has the best chance of beating that person they are against.”
Richards, alongside the Conservative Party, will now form the official opposition with 99 seats in parliament – a 67-seat decrease from 2011. The Liberal Party picked up an additional 150 seats.
“Obviously, this was not the (federal) result I had hoped for. (But) Canadians have made their decision,” Richards said.
“I will focus on continuing to be a strong effective advocate. We’ll hold the government to account (with a focus on) low taxes, balanced budgets and a safe and secure country.”
- with files from Dustin Ruth and Tanya Foubert
