NDP's Atamanenko retains seat in BC Southern Interior riding
By Timothy Schafer
Alex Atamanenko has handily retained his seat in the B.C. Southern Interior riding which includes Nelson and Castlegar, riding the ‘Orange Crush’ wave and beating out Rossland Conservative candidate Stephen Hill in the 2011 Federal election Monday.
Atamanenko’s third win as the NDP candidate in the BCSI — ganering 52 per cent of the vote over Stephen Hill who got 37.5 per cent — accompanied massive gains by the NDP nationwide, beating their previous largest amount of seats of 43 by 60 seats, effectively giving them the status of the Official Opposition.
Atamanenko won with just over 50 per cent of the popular vote in his riding. Conservative Hill was second with 38.0 per cent followed by Green Party Brian Hunt at 6.4 per cent and Liberal Shan Lavell at 3.8 per cent.
The NDP campaign — buoyed by leader Jack Layton’s impressive performances in the televised leaders debates and his steady climb in leadership ratings — highlighted the party’s plans to introduce a cap-and-trade system to fight climate change, to cap credit-card interest rates at five per cent and to shift Conservative corporate tax breaks to smaller businesses.
The party was helped by an unprecedented breakthrough in Quebec where they had previously only ever elected two candidates.
The sovereignist Bloc Québécois, which had had won a majority of the seats in Quebec for the last 15 years, lost nearly all of their seats and ended the election with four seats. Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe lost his seat as well, and resigned from the party Monday night.
The NDP gain and the Conservative majority also came at the expense of the Liberal Party, who won the fewest seats in their history with 34, including the seat of party leader Michael Ignatieff.
The performance of the NDP overshadowed the first election of a Green Party candidate as party leader Elizabeth May won her seat in the Saanich-Gulf Islands, beating out Conservative cabinet minister Gary Lunn.
For the Castlegar-based Atamanenko, he will likely retain a cabinet post — he was a member of the standing committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food — as the NDP assumes the Official Opposition for the first time in their history.
To the East, Conservative David Wilks won the Kootenay-Columbia riding.
At the time of dissolution, the Conservatives held 143 seats — 12 short of the 155 needed for a majority — the opposition Liberals held 77, the Bloc had 47 and the NDP 36. There were two independent MPs and three vacant seats.
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Conservative majority
Harper, for the first time in the four campaigns he has led as Conservative leader since 2004, explicitly called on Canadians to give his party a majority mandate.
The central thrust of his election pitch was the Conservative record on maintaining a healthy Canadian economy at a time of historic upheaval in global financial markets.
But his message was the prospect of what he called an “illegitimate,” “reckless” and “ramshackle” coalition of opposition parties — backed by the separatist Bloc — if the Conservatives were denied a majority.
Ignatieff, who acknowledged the epic scale of his party’s defeat in the election in a concession speech shortly after 11 p.m. ET, congratulated Harper and Layton — “two opponents who’ve had the better of the night,” he said.
Source: Postmedia
How the battle went in BC
Abbotsford: Won by Conservative Ed Fast.
British Columbia Southern Interior won by NDP’s Alex Atamanenko.
Burnaby New Westminster riding has been won by NDP’s Peter Julian.
Cariboo-Prince George: Won by Conservative Dick Harris.
Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon: Won by Conservative Mark Strahl.
Delta-Richmond East: Won by Conservative Kerry-Lynne Findlay.
Fleetwood-Port Kells won by Conservative Nina Grewal.
Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo won by Conservative Cathy McLeod.
Kelowna-Lake Country: Won by Conservative Ron Cannan.
Kootenay-Columbia: Won by Conservative David Wilks.
Langley: Won by Conservative Mark Warawa.
Nanaimo-Cowichan has been won by NDP’s Jean Crowder.
North Vancouver won by Conservative Andrew Saxton.
Okanagan-Coquihalla won by Conservative Dan Albas.
Okanagan-Shuswap: Won by Conservative Colin Mayes.
Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge-Mission: Won by Conservative Randy Kamp.
Prince George-Peace River won by Conservative Bob Zimmer.
Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam: Won by Conservative James Moore.
Richmond: Won by Conservative Alice Wong.
Saanich-Gulf Islands won by Green Elizabeth May.
Skeena-Bulkley Valley: Won by NDP’s Nathan Cullen.
South Surrey-White Rock-Cloverdale: Won by Conservative Russ Hiebert.
Vancouver East won by NDP’s Libby Davies.
Vancouver Kingsway won by NDP’s Don Davies.
Vancouver South won by Conservative Wai Young.
Victoria: Won by NDP’s Denise Savoie.
West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country won by Conservative John Dunbar Weston.
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