The first really loud noise at Michael Chong’s election party came as the successful candidate entered the hall with his wife, Carrie, around 10:30pm.
Until then, many of Chong’s supporters watched stoically as the Conservative Party of Canada’s numbers rocketed up like a sped-up basketball score. A couple of supporters tried cheering loudly and encouraged others to do the same, but too many of those assembled had seen the party come so close in the previous two elections to get excited about election wins this night.
At one point, a member of the party faithful watched as the Conservatives reached the majority number of 155 seats, only to see it drop back about ten seconds later.
“Don’t worry, they haven’t counted my vote in B.C. yet,” he said to laughter from the crowd.
Chong took about 63% of the vote once again, and had 35,132 votes. All totals have still to be verified by Elections Canada.
Liberal Barry Peters was second at 9,034, a 16.4% share.
Anastasia Zavarella, who had virtually no campaign, was third with 7,151 and almost 13% of the total vote.
Green Party candidate Brent Bouteiller received 3,515 votes and 6.3%.
The Christian Heritage Party’s Jeffrey Streutker, who also missed most of the debates and had virtually no signs, brochures or advertising, had 316 votes and 0.57% of the vote.
As for the winner, before entering the church hall that was election night headquarters, Chong told reporters he heard three issues over and over during the campaign and he plans to take them back to Ottawa and concentrate on them. The first is jobs and the economy, the second is the soaring costs of food and fuel, and the third is a demand for a more civilized way of running a democracy.
He said later in an interview he intends to reintroduce his private member’s bill to bring civility back to the House of Commons with some rule changes.
Later, the party won a majority, with 166 of the 308 seats available.
Another surprise for the evening was the strength of the NDP, which won 102 seats and sent party leader Jack Layton back to Ottawa as leader of the opposition.
The other possible surprise was the sudden fall of two parties. The Liberal Party had its worst showing since Confederation, winning only 34 seats, with leader Michael Ignatieff losing in his own Toronto riding. Ignatieff said on Monday night he hoped to stay on and help rebuild the party and to remain as leader, but he also promised he would step aside if that was what desired.
On Tuesday morning, he held a press conference and resigned as party leader.
In other surprise developments, the Bloc Quebecois fell to four seats, with leader Gilles Duceppe losing his Montreal riding and resigning on election night.
As for Chong, he said, “I am thrilled with the results. We worked very hard.”
Chong said it was “one of the hardest fought campaigns” he has been in, and he saluted the hundreds of volunteers who supported him.
“We worked hard and earned the trust of Wellington-Halton Hills,” he said.
Chong later also saluted his campaign manager, Jim Smith, who has been with him now for four elections in seven years.
Smith, on the other hand, said Chong worked about 16 hours a day through the entire campaign, knocking on doors, meeting people and attending candidates’ debates.
He said Chong’s victory “comes from the hard work that Michael put in. You couldn’t pick a better candidate than Michael.”
Chong noted in his victory speech that over the past few weeks, a large number of younger people came to his campaign and volunteered, and he particularly liked that, saying they are the future of Canada.
Chong said he received a call from Liberal opponent Barry Peters and, “He was very gracious.”
Chong said he understands the problems now facing the Liberal party, because his own party went through the some of the same issues – very few seats – over the past few decades.
He said the Liberal party will have to rebuild and people like Peters will play a role.
Peters, on the other hand, felt the national campaign led to the poor results locally.
“I think that’s a good assessment,” he said later that night. “We did everything we could locally … It was more a national focus than a local focus.”
Peters added his party had allowed itself to be defined by the Conservatives.
“The Conservatives did a very good job of defining us and our leader – and that hurt. This contest was about the national campaign and the leaders,” he said.
Peters cited the non-existent campaign of the riding’s NDP candidate, Zavarella, who attended no debates in the riding, had no signs or brochures and was basically invisible throughout the campaign (Chong said he met her only once, at a Guelph radio station debate).
Peters wondered how such a candidate who “did so little in our riding” could win over 7,000 votes, and said, “It was a reflection of the national campaign.”
He said, though, he has not given up on politics
“The Liberals will have some work to do,” he said, adding that he hopes to be part of that.
“I’m willing to work with anyone in the Liberal Party,” Peters said, adding, “We have a lot of work to do. If it’s Mr. Ignatieff – and he is one option – we need to reflect on what’s happened. What worked and didn’t work.”
He said that can be fun, and the party will have to go back to its grass roots to rebuild.
As for himself, “I had a lot of fun. If it was anybody to run against, it’s Michael Chong – the most respected guy on the Conservative’s bench. He made the campaign fun. Brent made it really enjoyable.”
Bouteiller did not return messages from the Wellington Advertiser.
