Former St. Paul man Bernard Trottier says he was not surprised to have received the most votes in the riding of Etobicoke-Lakeshore in Toronto, defeating the Liberal Party incumbent.
The incumbent just happened to be the leader of Liberals, Michael Ignatieff, who has since stepped down.
Trottier won with a comfortable margin of 2,689 votes over the deposed leader, five per cent more, for a total of nearly 22,000 votes and over 40 per cent of the vote, according to Elections Canada.
Although he defeated the Liberal Party’s top man during the election, “the real satisfaction is that we’ve got a majority government now and we can get some very important things done for the country in the next four years. It’s not a question of whom you defeat,” he says.
During the campaign, Trottier and campaign supporters knocked on so many doors that he had a sense that he would win, he says.
The Conservative Party increased its representation in Ontario and Toronto by numerous seats, a change Trottier describes as a result of the Conservative message.
“Toronto’s not really different than the rest of the world in the sense that we really understand the need for fiscal responsibility,” he says.
Another point that registered with voters was the Conservative focus on prosperity, opportunity, jobs, and economic growth, he adds. Other parties campaigned on social programs and government spending, “a very different message,” he says.
As a business-focused city with a lot of industry, people in Toronto want to talk about growth and jobs more than anything, he says.
While the NDP nearly swept the Bloc Québécois out of Quebec, Trottier hopes having a federalist opposition will be easier to work with. While the NDP economic vision is very different than the Conservative’s vision, the parties share a common vision for government accountability, responsibility and transparency, he says.
“Both parties firmly believe in democracy and we want to make sure those institutions and processes and so on are reinforced.”
Trottier says the government will have to be sensitive to ridings which did not elect the Conservatives.
Re-elected MP for Westlock-St. Paul Brian Storseth spent a few days in Toronto knocking on doors for the party, but Trottier says he did not have any MPs intervene in his riding and that the grassroots effort of volunteers delivered the win. While additional resources helped sway some voters, the platform more than anything won the day, he says.
“I think fundamentally we had a stronger platform than the opposition parties did in Toronto. That’s why we won so overwhelmingly.”
Strong support from new Canadians for the Conservatives helped the party clinch the majority. New Canadians realized that voting Liberal and NDP does not help them and their families achieve their goals, Trottier says. The Conservative’s economic message more than anything appealed to the new Canadians’ vote, he says.
Trottier says he’s proud to have come from St. Paul and refers to it as his home town. He still has family in St. Paul and plans to visit here within the next 12 months.
