Valley Tories thrilled with Poilievre win
The Valley’s three Conservative MPs are celebrating the election of Pierre Poilievre as party leader after his sweeping first ballot victory on Saturday.
Dan Albas, Tracy Gray, and Mel Arnold all backed Poilievre during the leadership campaign, and he received some of his highest vote totals in the Okanagan.
“Congratulations to Pierre Poilievre — epic first ballot victory with over 68% of the points. Amazing!” Albas, MP for Central Okanagan-Similkameen-Nicola wrote on his Facebook page.
“Congratulations to our new leader and his wife Anaida with a decisive win of confidence,” Gray tweeted.
Arnold, who declared his support for Poilievre months after Albas and Gray did so, did not comment on his Facebook page directly on Poilievre’s win, but reposted congratulations from former interim party leader Candice Bergen.
Poilievre came to the Okanagan several times during the leadership campaign, drawing crowds in the hundreds.
Poilievre’s popularity among Conservative party members in the Okanagan was among the highest levels in the country, riding-by-riding breakdowns of the vote show. In North Okanagan-Shuswap, Arnold’s riding, Poilievre drew 78.6% of the vote; in Central Okanagan-Similkameen-Nicola, Albas’ riding, he got 76.7%; and in Gray’s riding of Kelowna-Lake Country he got 75.6%.
His greatest margin of victory was in the riding of South Okanagan-West Kootenay, which includes Penticton and all communities to the south along Highway 97. In the riding, currently held by NDP MP Richard Cannings, 80.2% of Conservative party members backed Poilievre.
“The number of people that became members of the Conservative party because of Pierre, and the record number of votes he received, gives him a mandate to not only make the Conservatives a stronger Opposition party, but ultimately lead the party into the next election in a very strong position to form the next government,” Helena Konanz, a two-time candidate for the Conservatives in the riding, said in a statement.
In all four Okanagan ridings, the second-place finisher in the leadership race was Leslyn Lewis, at about 12% of the vote, with Jean Charest a distant third at five percent.
Poilievre’s highest level of support in B.C. was 86.2% in the riding centred around Prince George.
Longtime Calgary MP Michelle Rempel Garner — who endorsed Patrick Brown in the race, before his ouster — said Poilievre's victory signals an end to the "war of succession" that has plagued the party since losing power to the Liberals in 2015.
Ed Fast, a representative from Abbotsford who endorsed Charest, said he expects to have a “constructive relationship” with the new leader, but doesn’t plan to adopt Poilievre's position that Bank of Governor Tiff Macklem should be fired over Canada's inflation rate.