Ted Menzies is going back to Ottawa as the Member of Parliament for the Macleod riding after winning a landslide victory in Monday’s federal election.
The results on the May 2 election in Macleod were no surprise and with the campaigning over Menzies said he’s ready to get back to work.
“I’m pretty happy that I’m back and able to once again represent my constituents because that is my number one role and I will keep that front and centre,” said Menzies on Monday night. “My main job is to make sure that I reflect what the constituents of Macleod think, how they think and what they want to see our government do.”
Menzies received 40,008 votes, or 77.4 per cent. NDP candidate Janine Giles came in second with 5,334 votes, Green Party candidate Attila Nagy was third with 2,394 votes, Liberal candidate Nicole Hankel came in fourth with 1,898 votes, Progressive Canadian Party candidate Brad Carrigan came in fifth with 1,754 votes and Christian Heritage Party Candidate Marc Slingerland placed sixth with 252 votes.
Throughout the campaign, Menzies said the number one issue Macleod residents talked about was the economy. He now wants to see the new Conservative government follow the course it set before the election was called.
“Stay on track, keep going forward with our policies and I think that’s where we’ll be at,” he said.
Priority number two on the campaign trail was health care and concerns over stable funding.
Menzies said he will express the taxpayer’s concerns as the federal government negotiates a new health care accord with the provincial government by 2014.
“We’ll take that message back to Ottawa,” he said.
Menzies will have to wait to see if he will still have a seat at the cabinet table this term. He was Minister of State for Finance prior to the election, however, he won’t speculate if he will be reappointed to the post.
He said he will be happy to serve in whatever role the Prime Minster wishes.
“I’ll leave that decision up to him,” he said.
Giles may have come in a distant second, but her final vote tally surpassed her expectations.
“We had set out a goal of 10 per cent (of the vote) — to get double digits in landslide Conservative country is pretty respectable,” she said.
With the election complete, she said she enjoyed the challenge of the campaign and thought she was able to get her message across.
“I learned a lot about the riding,” she said.
Liberal candidate Hankel said she was disappointed with the election results.
“I did expect to place better, but I was also expecting a lot of Liberal candidates to place better,” she said.
In the future, Hankel said she would welcome the chance to run again as the Liberal party candidate in the Macleod riding.
“Absolutely, I would love to stand up for democracy. There’s no question about that,” she said. “Macleod is a fantastic riding. I’ve met a lot of great people.”
