Sarah Mills: We came so close to the zipper merge
Three block of two lanes of traffic merging one by one, with everyone inching forward. It was the zipper merge in action...
Conservative Rosemarie Falk won a landslide victory in the byelection for Battlefords-Lloydminster to replace former cabinet minister Gerry Ritz.
The federal byelection saw the Liberals win three seats in other parts of the country, including a surprise victory in a formerly Conservative-held riding in B.C.
As the results came in on Monday night, 29-year-old Falk described the feeling as “surreal.”
She also said she believes getting out to all parts of the riding, including the rural areas helped her garner the most votes.
“We’ve been trying to travel the majority of our riding, and we’ve been listening to the people and what they have to say, and reassuring them that I am here to serve them I think has helped,” Falk told BattlefordsNow.
Falk captured her seat with almost 70 per cent of the vote.
Falk got 8,965 votes while the NDP candidate Matt Fedler had 1698. Liberal Larry Ingram finished third with 1345 votes followed by Independant candidate Ken Findlayson collected 681 votes. The Green Party candidate had just 200 votes.
Just 27 per cent of the possible 47,000 people eligible to vote cast their ballots in the byelection.
Among the unsuccessful contenders in the race, Fedler said he hasn’t given up, and seemed buoyed to run again in the future despite the numbers.
“I’m proud of the campaign we ran,” the 25-year-old NDP candidate said. “It was a strong grass-roots campaign. This was always building towards the next one, the next one and the next one after that.”
Falk will replace Ritz, who served as the Member of Parliament for the riding for the past 20 years before announcing his retirement this summer.
