CARLTON TRAIL—EAGLE CREEK — With a commanding lead over her competitors, Kelly Block has been reelected as MP for Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek.
With 191 of 192 polls reporting, Block, the Conservative candidate, received 68.3 per cent of the vote.
“I'm very grateful to the voters of Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek for once again putting their confidence in me and, I would say, in our Conservative platform, knowing that we introduced it as early on as we did,” she said at around 9:50 p.m. on Sept. 20.
“We worked very hard. We got out there, we were connecting with voters in every corner of the riding, and it paid off.”
Block received 26,780 votes. Her nearest competitor, Shannon O'Toole of the New Democrats, received 5,249.
Micheal Bohach of the People’s Party received 3,774, 9.7 per cent of the vote. In 2019, the People’s Party only received 1.78 per cent of the vote.
“Whenever I talked to constituents during this campaign, I always reminded them that vote splitting only helps the Liberals,” Block said. “When we are divided, it hurts us and only helps the Liberals to win.”
Harrison Andruschak of the Liberals got 1,909 votes, Diane Pastoor of the Mavericks 1,013 and Cherese Reemaul of the Greens 368.
Provincially, the Conservatives are poised to retain control of all of 14 Saskatchewan seats. For most of election night, Saskatoon West was the closest to flipping NDP, with the spread between the two parties in the hundreds of votes.
“It isn't over until every poll has reported and so we're looking forward to seeing Saskatchewan remain completely blue,” Block said.
Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River, which had long-time MLA Buckley Belanger run for the Liberals, saw Conservative Gary Vidal return with 48.4 per cent of the vote.
Nationally, the numbers are looking similar to the 2019 results. The Liberals are leading in 158 seats, the Conservatives 119, the Bloc Quebecois 34, the NDP 25 and the Greens 2.
“I think we were hoping for a better result than what appears to be the numbers right now,” Block said. “ I'm waiting to see where everything ends up once all of the polls have reported.”
With the results being similar, the Humboldt Journal asked Block if Liberal leader Justin Trudeau should have called the election.
“What I heard from constituents right from the beginning of the campaign until these last few days was people were still believing that it was an unnecessary election,” she said. “They didn't believe that this was the time to be holding an election and I think he [Trudeau] will have to account for that.”
Block said with the election over, she’ll take a quick breather before getting back to work.
“I think I'm going to take a couple days off, catch up on some things with my family and around my home, and connect with all of our supporters and volunteers who worked so hard to get the results that we've gotten this evening.”
