The city of Prince Albert will remain Tory blue.
Conservative Randy Hoback has won the riding following Monday’s vote, his fifth time claiming victory in the federal election.
Hoback took the riding of Prince Albert beating out the NDP’s Ken McDougall, Liberal candidate Estelle Hjertaas, Joseph McCrea from the People’s Party of Canada, Hamish Graham of the Greens and Heather Schmidt of the Maverick Party.
“I’m thankful that the people had their faith in me to put me back in as the MP and continue to work hard for them,” said Hoback from his election night gathering at Montana’s. “I really want to thank the voters for getting out and voting today.”
(Rob Mahon/paNOW Staff)Hoback will once again sit as a member of the official Opposition after the Liberals claimed a second minority government.
Despite losing, Liberal candidate for Prince Albert Estelle Hjertaas is excited to see what another Liberal government can do for the entire country.
“What I want is strong leadership as we’ve seen throughout the pandemic…moving forward on things like childcare, a big one for me as I’m holding my baby right now trying to get him to sleep.”
(Jaryn Vecchio/paNOW Staff)Hjertaas ran for the Liberals in the 2019 election, finishing third behind Hoback and NDP candidate Harmony Johnson-Harder.
While NDP candidate Ken MacDougall didn’t win the Prince Albert seat, he still considers the campaign a success due to the support he gained.
“We are probably going to be making the next four years an election campaign. I’m hopeful. I’m looking at this as a very positive thing.”
He says he expects to see the party campaign over the next four years to build off their ‘growing’ momentum.
PPC candidate Jospeh McCrea weighed in on his campaign and while he’s discouraged at the result, he’s happy with the support he and his party received.
“A lot of people want their freedom back, they want change. I’m definitely going to run again next election and we’re going to have stronger support.”
Hoback was asked if there was ever any risk of the PCC — largely supported by anti-vaxers — splitting the vote. He said voters likely weren’t willing to gamble on a fourth or fifth place party with the possibility that Trudeau could squeak in with seats going to someone else.
“People just want to get rid of Trudeau. That’s been the theme since 2019 and it continued again today. I think we’ll be back at it 2 years, 3 years, 4 years, who knows, but we’ll definitely take them out next time.”
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panews@pattisonmedia.com
Twitter: @princealbertnow
