Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam MP James Moore spent the day after his victory party fielding reporters' calls, thanking fellow Conservative candidates in B.C., wrapping up his campaign office and "doing the community a great big favour by taking down all of our election signs as fast as we can."
The Canadian Heritage and Official Languages minister secured 56% of votes cast, up from the 54% he garnered in the 2008 general election and highest percentage since he was first elected in 2000.
The NDP also fared well under first-time candidate Mark Ireland, reaping 30% of the vote - the largest result for the party since the riding was formed in 2003. In 2008, the NDP's Zoe Royer won 22% of the vote - and 4,000 fewer votes than Ireland.
Meanwhile, the Liberals recorded their poorest result in 14 years with 8.5% of the vote; in the 2004 election, when the party won, it collected 27% of votes cast
Most of the lost Grit support went to the NDP with its so-called "orange wave" sweeping across Canada in the last week of the campaign, said the Liberals' riding president, Ron McKinnon, who ran against Moore in 2008. The riding's executive will hold its regular monthly meeting next Wednesday "and we will be licking our wounds and carrying on," he said while collecting campaign signs yesterday.
Battling Moore, "a well-established, well-funded and well-organized" candidate, is "hard to compete against," McKinnon said. But he praised Stewart McGillivray, a second-year UBC student, for his tenacity. McGillivray would be a candidate the riding would field again, McKinnon said.
Speaking on election night, McGillivray said his party's losses nationally would lead to new blood entering the party. He said the Grits have been down before and would be able to come back in future elections.
"I don't think this is something that will discourage us in the long term," he said. "As long as we keep promoting the progressive-centrist version of government, I think we can come back."
Ireland said he was happy to put a dent in Moore's majority. "We were a pretty low-resource campaign so that limited what we could do to get our message out, but what we could do, we did and I'm happy with it all," he said Monday night.
Commenting on the national results, he said, "I'm flabbergasted that it's a Conservative majority but anytime we double or more the number of seats that we had before, then we're not going to complain about that."
Also on Monday night, speaking to about 80 people at Coquitlam's Westwood Plateau Golf and Country Club, Moore raised a glass to toast his campaign staff, volunteers and supporters. During his speech, the 34-year-old Port Moody resident often turned his attention to the large television screen at his side, remarking on the number of seats his party picked up nationally to win a majority government - the first time in a decade. He also said he was pleased to see the Bloc Quebecois decimated.
"This is just a phenomenal night for Canada," he said in his speech, noting Canadians stepped up to vote in record numbers "to say, 'Enough of the games. Let's make Parliament work and let's have a steady, stable majority government under Stephen Harper that gets things done.'"
Campaign manager Barb Haidn said Moore's campaign was different from his past races as more volunteers - some of whom had never worked on an election - signed up to return Moore to Ottawa.
"When I sit in that little green chair in the House of Commons, I know I stand on your shoulders," Moore told the crowd. "When they always name my name and say, 'Mr. Moore, Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam,' I'm always reminded every day that this is home, this is my focus, this is my priority. I serve you."
Asked how he will improve as MP, Moore told The Tri-City News: "I think with age, like good wine, you get better. I have a very good working relationship with all of the mayors in the Tri-Cities, the MLAs, the provincial government, and I just look forward to getting back to work and not having to deal with the threat of an election every three months.
"That's very destabilizing and it focuses you away from your work and not enough on governing and serving," he said.
Moore said he has not spoken with the Prime Minister about whether he will remain in cabinet but if he stays on as heritage minister, he will oversee the first official visit of the new royal couple, Prince William and Kate Middleton, to Canada later next month.
And he was unclear about the path of Bill C-32 to change copyright laws, which Moore was stick-handling. "We think it was the right balance between creators and consumers," he said.
Still, Moore said his priority in the next government will be his party's new crime bill. "I want to make sure the whole issue of Allan Schoenborn and those who are deemed to be criminally not responsible is something's that addressed more seriously in the Criminal Code," he said, referring to the convicted child killer now at Forensic Psychiatric Institution in Coquitlam who had sought escorted day leaves but withdrew his request last month.
- additional reporting by Todd Coyne and Gary McKenna
THE RESULTS FORPT. MOODY-WESTWOOD-PT. COQUITLAM
James Moore, Conservative - 27,181 (56.2%)
Mark Ireland, NDP - 14,530 (30%)
Stewart McGillivray, Liberal - 4,110 (8.5%)
Kevin Kim, Green - 2,161 (4.5%)
Paul Geddes, Libertarian - 421 (0.9%)
Voter turnout: 48,403 of 85,028 registered voters
(The number of registered electors shown here does not include electors who registered on election day.)
