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Volume 10 Issue 16
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Cullen victory overshadowed nationally By Josh Massey, Jackie Lieuwen, Margaret Speirs, Rod Link THE NORTHERN CONNECTOR
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TERRACE - Re-elected Skeena – Bulkley Valley NDP MP Nathan Cullen says he’s looking forward to spending time with his wife and twin sons. “I’m going to see my kids and have a normal meal again. We put almost 20,000 kilometres on the car. It was a long, long campaign. I’m just focused in on phoning my colleagues... and seeing how everyone is doing,” he said Oct. 19 after learning he achieved a fourth straight electoral win. Personally victorious with just over 51 per cent of the vote, Cullen did express disappointment at his party’s showing. From official opposition with hopes of forming the next federal government when the votes were counted Oct. 19, the NDP instead is in third place. “We’re very disappointed we were not able to form the government as we hoped to do a number of weeks ago,” said Cullen. The party fell from 95 seats at the beginning of the election to 44 when the counting was done. Its share of the popular vote dropped from 30 per cent to 19 per cent. Still, he said he has no intentions of running for the leadership of the NDP should Thomas Mulcair step down after this week’s disappointment for the party. “It’s the furthest thought from my mind tonight,” said Cullen who placed third the last time the NDP held a leadership race. As for whether the election results would’ve been different if he had been leader, Cullen said he had no lack of confidence in Mulcair. “That ship sailed three years ago... I was confident with Thomas’s leadership and ... many many short weeks ago, [the talk was] about Mulcair as prime minister.” Meanwhile, Conservative
CHRIS GAREAU / THE NORTHERN CONNECTOR
Re-elected Skeena - Bulkley Valley New Democrat Nathan Cullen watches election results come in Oct. 19 with one of his twin sons. challenger Tyler Nesbitt, who ran second with 25 per cent of the vote, says he’s willing to help Cullen push the new federal Liberal government for results for northwestern B.C. “Nathan is a voice in the opposition just like we are. We will just see what he can make of it, and if there is anything I can ever do in my capacity to help the people in this region I will certainly have my phone on for him,” said Nesbitt speaking at his Terrace campaign office the night of the election. Nesbitt said his results had “absolutely nothing to do with my performance and my team and anything we did. It’s that we got caught up in that anti-Conservative, anti-Harper wave. And that’s just what it was. I make no regrets about how we campaigned.” We had the right message but the deck couldn’t be more stacked against a Conservative running in the Skeena - Bulkley
Valley riding,” said Nesbitt. And he did wish Cullen the best “and hope he can deliver results for people here being a distant third place [nationally].” Nesbitt even suggested Cullen would make a viable NDP leadership candidate once again. “If he does in the end, Nathan and I will never agree on many issues but at the very least I don’t think it would be such a bad thing for the representative of the Skeena - Bulkley Valley to lead a major federal party,” said Nesbitt. Liberal candidate Brad Layton, while unsuccessful personally, was in an upbeat mood. “I’m ecstatic, we needed change and I’m 100 per cent behind the platform of the Liberal party,” said Layton the evening of the election from his Smithers campaign office. “We’ve already been checked off as elected to NDP here, I’m hoping that Nathan Cullen will work as hard as he can to make
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sure that we see the benefits with the Liberal government.” Layton finished with just under 19 per cent of the vote, a substantial improvement over the Liberal candidate who ran in 2011. Green candidate Jeannie Parnell had 3.6 per cent of the vote and the Christian Heritage Party’s Don Spratt had 1.8 per cent of the vote. In the neighbouring riding of Prince George - Peace River – Northern Rockies, Conservative Bob Zimmer, the incumbent, was returned with 47.9 per cent of the vote compared to Kathi Dickie of the NDP who had 16,9 per cent and Liberal Matt Shaw who had 27 per cent. Three other people also ran. In the Cariboo - Prince George riding, Todd Doherty was elected as the Conservative MP with 37.1 per cent of the vote while Liberal Tracy Calogheros received 30.8 per cent of the vote and NDPer Trent Derrick received 25.6 per cent of the vote.
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