It may be that many Canadians have differing views as to the positive and negative aspects of the results of last Monday’s federal election, but there is probably one fact that everyone can be universally thankful for.
No more federal elections for at least four years.
At the federal level, the next four years should prove to be very interesting, especially now that the NDP sit as the official opposition for the first time in history.
At the local level, it appears that the status quo was maintained in the ridings of the BC Southern Interior and Okanagan -Coquihalla.
The controversy surrounding Dan Albas selection (appointment?) as Conservative candidate appears not to have had much effect on the outcome of the election, as Albas took 53.6 per cent of the popular vote, compared to predecessor Stockwell Day’s 58.16 per cent in 2008.
Alex Atamanenko had similar results in BC Southern Interior, increasing his share of the popular vote by a few points from 47.75 per cent in 2008 to 50.9 per cent on Monday.
The election did not have many controversial local issues from which we could define the candidates, but perhaps the reason why BC Southern Interior’s vote did not change much - at least in this part of the riding - was best evidenced in the All Candidate’s Meeting at Victory Hall. Although residents had four candidates to choose from, there appeared to be only two philosophies at work.
With two candidates not even living in the riding, and not showing a lot of familiarity with local issues, for many residents it was a question of a vote between two candidates and their differing philosophies.
However, upon close scrutiny, for those who witnessed the forum, those voters may ultimately have been influenced as much by the delivery of the message, as the message itself.