Medicine Hat- Cardston - Warner candidates at local debate earlier in the campaign (Photo by Colton McKee)

By Hayley Ferguson & Alex McCuaig

Medicine Hat - Cardston - Warner

Local candidates weigh in on election night

Oct 21, 2019 | 11:06 PM

Medicine Hat, AB – After Conservative Glen Motz claimed 80 per cent of the vote, it was slim pickings for the remaining votes divided among the other five candidates combined.

But of those, the NDP’s Elizabeth Thomson appears to have garnered the second most votes.

She wasn’t disappointed and expects to run again. And says she isn’t too worried about a minority government.

“It’s not doomsday like some people seem to think it is,” said Thomson at her parents’ Medicine Hat home where several NDP supporters were taking in the results. “Jagmeet (Singh) has laid out what he expects if the NDP hold the balance of power . . .We’re talking universal pharmacare, that’s good for everyone. We’re talking electoral reform. Something Trudeau had promised in 2015 and didn’t deliver on.”

While Harris Kirshenbaum of the Liberals would have liked to see stronger numbers for his party in the riding, he says tonight he is focused on the party win.

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“It’s not even a matter of excited, it’s a matter of really being appreciative of a national overview where our country is going,” he said.

For Kirshenbaum, another victory was Conservative leader Andrew Scheer not becoming Prime Minister.

“It’s delightful to think that Andrew Scheer isn’t going to be around very much longer,” he continued “I’d far rather four more years of Justin Trudeau breaking the occasional promise then Andrew Scheer keeping any of his.”

Cardston-based Peoples Party candidate Andrew Nelson said there were some hard lessons learned for himself and his party after allegations surfaced of Conservative-sponsored third-party campaign against the upstarts.

“(We) obviously felt that personally – where getting attacked and you spend all your time trying to defend yourself,” said Nelson.

As for whether the party will live to fight another day, “I don’t know. I’m going to take a little bit of time here to think through and talk with the other candidates and the leader to see what is going to happen,” said Nelson.