Patzer returning to Ottawa with a resounding mandate

Incumbent MP Jeremy Patzer easily outdistanced the field in the seven candidate race to earn a second trip to Ottawa to represent the Cypress Hills-grasslands constituency.

Patzer had collected over 70 per cent of support the first hour after the polls closed and he maintained that lead enroute to earning his second seat as the Member of Parliament representing Southwest Saskatchewan.

As of press deadline late Monday night, with approximately 70 per cent of polls reporting, Patzer had received 15,376 votes, a 72.4 per cent voter support. In a close race for second place NDP candidate Alex Mcphee had 2,001 votes, slightly ahead of the 1,884 for People’s Party of Canada candidate Charles Hislop. Maverick Party candidate Mark Skagen and Liberal Party candidate Mackenzie Hird both had four per cent of the vote with 30 per cent of the polls left to report. Green Party candidate Carol Vandale and independent Maria Lewans both had under one per cent of the vote.

Patzer was not surprised by the local vote numbers, as he was anticipating strong support in his re-election bid.

“A lot of people were again just motivated to try to get Trudeau out of there and recognizing that our party is the only chance that could do that. And if people want consistent, true representation for this riding that they realize this is where it needed to be was with the Conservative Party,” Patzer said during a small gathering at his campaign office on Monday night.

And while Patzer won the 2019 election with an unprecedented 81.2 per cent of the popular vote, this election produced slightly more support for other parties.

“I realize how frustrated people are,” Patzer said. “There’s always the opportunity for people to want to look at other parties as a protest vote or just trying to capitalize the frustration. But at the end of the day I think people looked at the track record of the things that I’ve worked hard on as a Member of Parliament for this area - focussing on the rural issues, focusing on oil and gas, focussing on agriculture - those were the three main areas that I ran on and it resonates with people. And just being able to also get some changes done on Clare’s Law was a big deal as well for a lot of people.”

And while Patzer was pleased the Liberal Party has obtained only a second straight minority government, he had been hoping for a breakout during the snap summer election called in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic fourth wave.

“At the beginning of it a Liberal minority would have been seen as a victory. But I think just seeing the numbers as we progressed throughout the campaign, there were points in time where it looked like we had a real shot to win and I think we were very confident with some of the numbers we saw.”

“There’s some positive signs out there, but just at the end of the day the balance is about almost exactly where it was before.”

Patzer felt that voters simply were not swayed during the campaign and opted for the status quo.

“A lot of people just stayed with what they knew, with the exception of Nova Scotia. But I think people just wanted to keep things the status quo, and the numbers again falling pretty much exactly where they were in 2019 shows that people just wanted it to stay as it was.”

“I thought more people would be frustrated, and there would be a few more seats our way. But again it’s all about that voter turnout, and we’ll see what happens when the mail in ballots and the special ballots are counted in the next day or two, and maybe one or two more will flip.”