Jean rides ‘Blue Wave’ into government

Brian Jean

Joe McWilliams
For the South Peace News

Incumbent Conservative MP Brian Jean received over 3,000 fewer votes in the Oct. 14 election than he did in 2006, but his share of the vote increased to 67 per cent from 64. The difference was fewer people bothered to vote this year - a trend that started several elections ago and shows no signs of stopping. Jean won the Fort McMurray-Athabasca riding with 17,160 votes, well ahead of NDP candidate Mark Voyageur’s 3,267. Liberal John Webb had probably the worst result ever of a Liberal candidate in the riding, polling only 2,689 votes, or 10.5 per cent of the popular vote. Webb’s showing reflected a generally poor performance for the Liberals in Western Canada, with the exception of a few Vancouver ridings. The Liberals won no seats in Alberta, and in fact tumbled to third or fourth place in some ridings, behind even the Green Party. The Green’s share of the popular vote increased locally, as well as nationally. Dylan Richards, the Athabasca pastor and Green candidate, managed 6.34 per cent of the popular vote in the riding, an improvement of a point-and-a-half over Ian Hopfe’s 2006 performance at the polls. His was the only party in the riding that improved in both vote share and number of votes over the last election, 1,619 to 1,547. Nationally, the Greens were up to 6.8 per cent of the popular vote, but failed again to capture a seat. The NDP, although more successful nationally (37 seats, one in Alberta), lost ground locally. They shared that fate with the Liberals and First People’s National Party, whose candidate John Malcolm got 244 votes, about 100 fewer than in 2006. Jacob Strydhorst of the Christian Heritage Party brought up the rear with just 186 votes. Shawn Reimer, the 18-year-old independent candidate from Fort McMurray, was fifth out of the seven candidates with 382 votes. Jean returns to Ottawa as a member of another Conservative minority government. He spent the past nearly three years as parliamentary secretary to the minister of transport. A cabinet post seems unlikely, given the surplus of Tory members from Alberta, but that remains to be seen. Reached in Fort McMurray, the newly re-elected MP said he was “very pleased” with the result. Jean said he’s always promptly responded to constituents’ requests for help, and he thinks that paid off in the vote. “People must think I’m doing at least a decent job,” he said. “I’m really appreciative of people’s faith in me and I won’t let them down.” Jean doesn’t know exactly what he’ll be doing once he gets back to Ottawa. He said he wouldn’t be surprised if he’s assigned something different than his post in Transport, but “that’s up to the prime minister.” Jean said he is looking forward, however, to getting back to work helping to implement Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s six-point plan for stabilizing the economy. “(We’re going to) work hard to see what we can do to restoring Albertans’ quality of life,” he said. Jean, a lawyer from Fort McMurrary, also says the infrastructure needs of this part of the province is an important priority.

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