I began the election-process taking a look at the historical voting numbers in the riding.
I wanted to get a sense of how past candidates and parties looked going forward in the current, now past, election.
With it over, I had to take another look to see how things fared compared to the 2008 general election.
The good news everyone can agree on is that there was a better turnout this year, albeit modestly.
At current count — the numbers are preliminary from the Elections Canada website — 35,065 people voted.
Now that only makes it an extra 413 voters over 2008, but it shows people were taking an interest.
Percentage-wise, it works out to just shy of two per cent more votes from the eligible voters this year. This year it’s currently standing at 58.6 per cent.
Now, much to the annoyance, I’m sure, of any political party that wasn’t the NDP, Nathan Cullen took more votes for himself than every other candidate had combined.
At current count, 19,238 ballots were cast for him.
The Conservatives’ Clay Harmon was the closest to him with 12,255 votes.
If you took the Greens, the Canadian Action Party, the Liberals and the Christian Heritage Party together and pooled it with the Conservatives — just for illustrative purposes — that would be 15,827 votes.
The upside now from all this is that the NDP, nationally, are now the Official Opposition. At the very least that could give Cullen an even stronger voice now than he ever had before.
And on the Conservatives’ majority, maybe we can put our guard down and not worry about another federal election any time soon.
That stability will be welcome, especially with the Northwest on the cusp of so much (see our front page story on the Northwest Transmission Line, for instance.)
It turned out to be quite the election.
Now lets see what those MPs in Ottawa do with the shake-up.
Cameron Orr is the editor of The Interior News and writes On the Line.
