Falk sets new record in Provencher

As polling stations across Canada tallied their results on Monday night, the mood in Provencher Conservative incumbent Ted Falk’s victory party was restrained.

Even as Falk made his way to his best ever result in five elections, the Conservatives were falling just short of forming government, a tough pill to swallow for party faithful in attendance.

Mark Carney’s Liberals won 169 seats, just three short of a majority government.

Meanwhile the Conservatives bettered their seat counts considerably, improving from 119 in the 2021 election to 144 this time around.

However, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre lost his seat, as did NDP leader Jagmeet Singh who saw their 24-seat count diminish to just seven.

In Provencher, both Conservative incumbent Ted Falk and Liberal candidate Trevor Kirczenow saw gains in voter support.

Falk won with 34,364 votes for a 66.1 percent share of the votes.

That eclipses his worst showing in 2021 when he tallied nearly 10,000 votes less and had a vote percentage of 48.7 percent.

It also beats his previous high, set in 2019 at 65.9 percent.

Meanwhile Trevor Kirczenow led the Liberals to their best finish in Provencher since Terry Hayward carried the Liberal banner in 2015.

Kirczenow improved his 13.1 percent 2019 and 17 percent 2021 vote share to 26.1 percent or 13,594 votes on Monday.

NDP candidate Brandy Schmidt, a parachute candidate that did no campaigning locally finished third with 2,398 votes for a 4.6 percent voter share, the worst NDP result since 1965 when Francis Clement Anderson won four percent of the votes. That year Walter Jorgenson won the riding for the PCs.

People’s Party of Canada candidate Noel Gautron earned 943 votes or 1.8 percent of votes cast. That’s a big decline from 2021 when he finished third in the riding with more than 8,000 votes and 16.4 percent of votes cast.

Blair Mahaffy of the Green Party came in with just 1.4 percent of local votes with 705.

That’s the worst result for the Green Party in Provencher since they started running candidates in 2004.

Reelected MP Ted Falk took the stage at his event to thank everyone who supported him.

He began by acknowledging his faith.

“I want to thank God first of all for giving me the opportunity again to serve him,” he said. “I don’t take that for granted. He has given me the ability and the opportunity to serve the residents, the constituents of Provencher in Ottawa and I’m looking forward to doing that.”

A lengthy list of thanks included his wife Irene, campaign manager Craig Tomlinson, his kids, grandkids and other family members, volunteers and supporters.

Falk said door knockers collectively walked over 3,000 km and knocked on just over 11,000 doors throughout the campaign.

Falk told supporters he will go back to Ottawa to put Canada and Provencher first.

“I’ll continue to work hard to serve you because government shouldn’t be the master,” he said. “Government is the servant, and we want to make sure that’s the way it stays.”

In an interview following the speech, Falk said he feels his increased support locally was due to dissatisfaction with the last nine years Liberal government as well support for his record.

“I think there was affirmation for the representation that I’ve been able to provide for the constituents of Provencher,” he said.

He admitted he was disappointed with the national election results.

“I would have liked to have seen at least a minority Conservative government if not a majority,” he said. “Somehow the message didn’t get through to people and I think there’s a lot of complicating factors out there.”

Falk said he was pleased with his party’s messaging saying he supports Poilievre.

He said he’ll head back to Ottawa with priorities that were talked about during the campaign.

“We have to start making life more affordable for Canadians, we have to bring our crime rates down, we’ve got to make our streets safer, we’ve got to tap into the abundant natural resources that we have,” he said. “We’re missing opportunities that the global market is asking for.”

Voter turnout in Provencher was 71.48 percent, the highest it’s been since Elections Canada began recording it in 1988.

Nationally voter turnout totaled 68.7 percent, but both numbers exclude anyone who registered to vote on election day.