Alistair MacGregor is looking forward to another term as Member of Parliament for Cowichan-Malahat-Langford.
The New Democrat MP was elected to his third term on Monday night, holding 43 per cent of the vote with 189 of 250 polls reporting. Conservative Alana DeLong sat second at 28 per cent, followed by Liberal Blair Herbert at 16 per cent, Green candidate Lia Versaevel at seven per cent, and People’s Party representative Mark Hecht at six per cent.
If those numbers hold up, this will be MacGregor’s most convincing victory. He won with 35.94 per cent of the vote in 2015, and 36.06 per cent in 2019.
“I’m very thankful to the people of this riding for putting that kind of trust on my shoulders again,” MacGregor said on Monday night. “I think they’ve reviewed my last six years in office and decided that I am the right person for this riding. I will go into the 44th Parliament trying to live up to their expectations.”
The federal NDP under Jagmeet Singh were poised to claim 27 seats in Monday’s election, up from 24 when Parliament was dissolved, while the federal Liberals were once again preparing to form a minority government, with a projected increase for 156 seats, 14 shy of the 170 needed for a majority.
“It doesn’t look like the result will be all that different from what we just had, which begs the question of why this election was necessary in the first place,” MacGregor said. “The Liberals were seeing a majority and they were denied that because Canadians don’t feel comfortable giving them 100 per cent of the power in the House of Commons.”
MacGregor said his the first task of his third term would be to thank the people who donated to and volunteered for his campaign.
Based on feedback from knocking on doors during his campaign, his main focus this term will be on housing. He wants to get his staff in the constituency and in Ottawa working on that issue immediately and fighting for federal housing dollars.
“That was the big issue no matter what part of the riding I was knocking on doors in,” he said.
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