Conservative Bob Zimmer will spend his fourth term as Prince George – Peace River – Northern Rockies MP as he captured just over 60% of the popular vote last night (Monday) in the federal election.
Coming in second with 13.5% of the popular vote was NDP candidate Cory Longley, followed by Ryan Dyck of the PPC with 10.5%, Amir Alavi of the Liberals with 8.6%, and Catharine Kendall of the Greene Party with 3.3 %.
Zimmer attributes the Conservative’s loss on the federal level to a lack of voter confidence.
“For us, as a party, our message just didn’t resonate strongly enough with voters across Canada, we still did decently well but again we’ll see another Liberal government and we think that needs to change,” he explained.
He says the future of BC’s natural resource sector is promising, and the soft lumber agreement is imperative to the success of Prince George’s forest sector.
“We just want to get Canadians and our economy back to work and Canada’s such a promising country we need to just accomplish what we know we can so I’ll just keep working on that. We’ve been working on it for many years now and we will just keep going,” Zimmer said.
Meanwhile, Longley says this will not be the last time he and Zimmer face off in politics.
“This isn’t a hobby for me, and it’s very likely we’ll see another election in 18 to 24 months and I really hope that Bob understands that that little sign in your vehicle on the mirror that says objects are closer than they appear, they’re talking about me,” he said.
Longley adds he’s very happy with where the NDP placed in the riding, especially since the Conservatives have been in office since 2011.
Alavi says he hopes Zimmer focuses on one thing for this upcoming term.
“I really hope he opens up more doors for communication with our people in the riding,” Alavi stated.
Alavi says he is happy that Canada will continue to have a Liberal Prime Minister, but criticized Trudeau’s ability to explain the reasoning for the snap election.
Mail-in ballots will be counted this week.