Friday, March 29, 2024
March 29, 2024

May coasts to third Saanich-Gulf Islands victory

Elizabeth May is heading back to Ottawa for a third term as Saanich-Gulf Islands MP.

With 95 per cent of polls reported by 11:25 p.m., May won the riding handily, with preliminary results giving her 48.9 per cent of the popular vote and 26,603 votes.

Conservative David Busch was the second-place finisher with 19.7 per cent of the vote (10,725). He was followed by Liberal Ryan Windsor with  16.5 per cent and 9,010 votes, NDP candidate Sabina Singh with 13.5 per cent (7,326 votes) and Ron Broda of the People’s Party of Canada with 1.4 per cent (784 votes).

In her post-election speech televised after those given by all other national leaders, May thanked volunteers and congratulated the two other candidates elected for the Green party — incumbent Paul Manly in Nanaimo-Ladysmith and Jenica Atwin in Fredericton.

Despite raising their national popular vote from 3.5 to 6.5 per cent between the 2015 and 2019 elections, May’s party did not make the breakthrough hoped for in terms of seats across the country or on Vancouver Island.

But May looked on the positive side in her assessment.

“For the record books, this is the best election result that any Green party in the first-past-the-post system has ever had . . . and we enter parliament as the first caucus in the history of parliament that is two thirds women. Just sayin’.”

In 2015, May won the riding with 54 per cent of the popular vote (37,076 votes). Conservative candidate Robert Boyd was in second spot with 19 per cent (13,263 votes), Liberal Tim Kane was third with 17 per cent (11,430 votes), Alicia Cormier of the NDP was fourth with nine per cent of the vote (6,181) and Libertarian candidate Meghan Porter had .4 per cent (268 votes).

Preliminary national results on Monday saw Justin Trudeau and the Liberal party win 156 seats, down from 184 in 2015, meaning a loss of their majority. The Conservatives won 122, the Bloc Quebecois 32, the NDP 24, the Greens three and former Liberal cabinet minister Jody Wilson-Raybould won her Vancouver-Granville seat as an independent.

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