Liberal John Aldag has won the riding of Cloverdale-Langley City.
After it took three days to count more than 3,700 mail-in ballots, Aldag emerged victorious by a count of more than 1,600 votes.
Aldag garnered 20,890 votes (39.2 %) while incumbent Conservative Tamara Jansen managed 19,272 votes (36.2 %).
The NDP’s Rajesh Jayaprakash got 10,584 votes (19.9 %), while People’s Party of Canada candidate Ian Kennedy got 2,559 votes (4.8 %).
The total vote count from all polling stations represented 53,305 votes in an electoral riding with 88,176 voters on the electoral list—a voter turnout of 60.45 per cent.
Aldag led most of way over the course of election night, but he said he was still pretty nervous until the advance polling ballots were counted.
Aldag said he got official word about the win Friday morning (Sept. 24) and was overjoyed at the voter response.
“I’m happy for the hard-fought victory,” he told the Cloverdale Reporter. “I’m ready to get back to work, to start recruiting my team. It’s absolutely critical for being able to serve the community.”
Aldag said one of this first things he wants to do is set up another interfaith and cultural committee that brings faith leaders and community leaders to a round table that meets a few times a year.
“I found them to be very successful,” he said. “Out of about 80 individuals, we’d always get about 50 people out to the meetings. It was a pretty reflective group, all faiths, and they would share their thoughts, what their priorities were, and what they needed me to do to serve them.”
Aldag said he’s looking to reach out to all constituents to see what their needs are.
“I’d also like to thank all the candidates who put their names forward,” he added. “And I like to thank our outgoing MP for her service to the community for the two years.”
Neither Tamara Jansen nor her campaign manager Shajeelin Dwivedi, could be reached for comment despite repeated attempts to contact them.
A volunteer with the campaign, who asked to remain anonymous, said Jansen’s campaign worked very hard and they are “extremely disappointed,” with the loss, he said.
“Despite years of great scandal and financial mismanagement—and a $600 million election that changed nothing—we now have more of the same.”
The volunteer said he thought some Conservative supporters voted for Ian Kennedy and the PPC after being unhappy with Erin O’Toole’s campaign. Kennedy took more than 2,500 votes in 2021. In the 2019 election, Kennedy only garnered about 900.
“Kennedy may never admit, but he helped John (Aldag) get out in front of Tamara (Jansen).”
Aldag said he’s going to Ottawa on Sept. 27 to get organized and will be back in Cloverdale once he gets access to the federal constituency office on Fraser Highway in about two weeks.
“To the greater community, watch for our office to be up and running,” he said. “I’m committed to serving all people in the riding across the political spectrum. I’m here to serve everyone.”
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