Conservative candidate John Duncan checked his watch before telling his supporters at the Best Western Westerly Hotel Tuesday night that 'It has been a good day' for him. A few minutes earlier CTV projected Duncan the winner in the Vancouver Island North riding, with more than 2,000 votes on the NDP's Catherine Bell.
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By Mark Allan - Comox Valley Record
Published: October 14, 2008 11:01 PM
Updated: October 15, 2008 9:38 AM
NDP candidate Catherine Bell was philosophical in defeat Tuesday night after Conservative John Duncan regained the Vancouver Island North seat.
With only seven polling stations still to report, the former forester from Campbell River had 25,924 votes to reclaim the seat in Parliament he had defended in three elections before Bell narrowly wrested it from him in 2006.
Bell had earned 23,082 ballots.
“It was a very close campaign,” Bell told supporters at what had been planned as a victory party in Courtenay. “I don’t know that anything went wrong necessarily. It’s just the way things work out, different demographics, different voting patterns.”
The former Comox Valley hotel cook, who lost an extremely close race to Duncan two elections ago, spoke magnanimously about him.
“I think he’ll be a very good MP for the riding,” Bell said. “He was in the past.”
At his victory party several blocks away, Duncan said he never doubted he would win the rubber match over Bell, who dropped in to tearfully congratulate him.
“If it slipped away, we’d never forgive ourselves,” Duncan said about his win.
He said he enjoyed the grassroots-level campaigning of going door to door, that he looked forward to reuniting with former caucus colleagues and that he was eager to get to work.
Philip Stone of the Green Party was a distant third with 4,463 votes and seven polls still to report. Liberal Geoff Fleischer had earned 2,359 ballots and independent Jason Draper had 359 votes.
Nationally, the Conservatives will fashion a second straight minority government with the Liberals as the Official Opposition.
