Vermilion-Lloydminster-Wainwright MLA Garth Rowswell is pictured during a Rotary Club of Lloydminster meeting in this Source file photo.
A majority of area voters are happy feeling Conservative blue in the wake of the Alberta general election.
The United Conservative Party (UCP), headed by Premier Danielle Smith, will form a majority government winning 49 seats to 38 for the NDP on Monday night. No other party elected a member.
UCP incumbent Garth Rowswell is rolling up his sleeves being re-elected by a landslide in Vermilion-Lloydminster-Wainwright with 13,071 votes with New Democratic Party candidate, Dawn Flaata, a distant second at 3,097.
“It’s nice. Now I get to continue some of the work I was working on and go on from here,” said an elated Rowswell on Tuesday morning.
He says the results don’t surprise him despite capturing a whopping 74.3 per cent of the 17,602 votes reported in the riding.
“The polls were kind of headed in that direction,” he said.
“You never take anything for granted, but it’s nice to get re-elected and now I’v got to earn the trust that’s been given to me.”
In third place was the Alberta Party’s Darrell Dunn with 475 votes followed by Danny Hozack, Wildrose Loyalty Party at 459, Independent, Matthew Powell, 354 and Green candidate Tigra-Lee Campbell, 146.
Dunn reached out to the Source in an email to congratulate Rowswell on his victory, noting it was a fun campaign for the Lloydminster resident.
“I’m certainly disappointed on a personal level, but this is politics and that is the nature of the game,” said Dunn.
He says he met a lot of really great people throughout the campaign and was particularly impressed with a class of students in Vermilion he chatted with at the mid point of the campaign.
“Don’t ever say young people aren’t interested; it was one of the most interesting forums we had,” said Dunn.
“My personal thanks to all of the other candidates for a clean campaign. That’s the way they should be run.”
Rowswell says provincially, it was nice to see the Conservative vote congeal under his party instead of being spread around, but some key UCP cabinet ministers failed to get re-elected.
“I was really disappointed the health minister Jason Copping didn’t get re-elected. We’ll see what happens,” said Rowswell.
He says his priority this week is to pick up his 1,200 elections signs.
“We’ve got three days to take all our signs down. I’ve got people who want to reuse the signs for some stuff so that’s good,” he said.
The legislature won’t convene until mid-to-late October, but Rowswell is sure the party will hold a caucus retreat at the Calgary Stampede this summer.
“We’ll have a lot of meetings and get our fall agenda set up and policies we want to get in place,” said Rowswell.
“Hopefully, I get to chair the Alberta First Cabinet Policy Committee again and get to work on that again.”
That committee reviews policy decisions, long-range strategic priorities, legislation and regulations.
Rowswell spent election night with volunteers at his Vermilion campaign office, but it took until just after 11 p.m. for the election to be called.
“I think Rocky Mountain House started late, so they gave them extra time at the end,” he said.
“I’m just speculating. I’m thinking what might have happened is they didn’t want to release the advance numbers until that poll closed.
“I think there was some kind of hiccup there.”
The official election results will be being made public on June 8.
