Cariboo-Prince George voters not only returned Conservative incumbent Todd Doherty to a fourth consecutive term in the House of Commons on Monday, April 28, they boosted his vote share by around 10 per cent.
As of midnight on election night, Doherty had earned 61.1 per cent of votes with 210 of 266 polls reporting in, according to Elections Canada compared to the 50.8 per cent of votes he earned in the 2021 federal election. It's also higher than the 36.64 per cent he earned in 2015 and the 52.7 per cent he earned in 2019.
At that same point in the night, the Liberal had candidates leading in 167 ridings, the Conservatives were leading in 145 ridings, the Bloc Quebecois was leading in 23 seats, the NDP were leading in seven and the Green Party was leading in just a single riding.
Here were the results in the riding as of late Monday evening, sorted by most to least votes:
- Todd Doherty (Conservative): 28,756 votes, 61.1 per cent vote share
- Clinton Emslie (Liberal): 13,760 votes, 29.4 per cent vote share
- Angie Bonazzo (NDP): 3,040 votes, 6.5 per cent vote share
- Jodie Capling (Green): 863 votes, 1.8 per cent vote share
- Rudy Sans (PPC): 343 votes, 0.7 per cent vote share
- Jake Wiens (Christian Heritage Party): 170 votes, 0.4 per cent vote share
- Kenneth B. Thomson: 147 votes, 0.3 per cent vote share
Speaking to reporters just outside his campaign night party at the Courtyard Marriott hotel in downtown Prince George around 9 p.m., Doherty said he knew the campaign was going to be “a dogfight.”
“We knew it was going to be very close,” Doherty said. “Obviously, we had hoped that we were going to form government, but a minority is the next best thing. I can’t wait to get back to work and back to challenging the Liberals.”
After getting a private member’s bill through the last minority Parliament to establish the 988 national suicide prevention hotline, Doherty said he is still working on that file.
While he said he hoped to do that work as part of a government caucus, Doherty said he had a strong record of working across party lines and would continue to do so.
Another priority he brought up was the need to eliminate the carbon tax through legislation, instead of the regulation-based solution implemented by Liberal Leader Mark Carney before the election.
He added that he thought Zimmer had done a good job in his role as northern affairs critic and looked forward to working with his caucus colleague when Parliament resumed.
When Doherty spoke with reporters, the NDP looked to have sustained heavy losses though party Leader Jagmeet Singh had not yet announced his resignation as he looked to lose his own seat in Burnaby Central.
Doherty said the NDP’s fortunes were a direct result of that party having helped to prop up the Liberal minority government “and being complicit with all the scandals and everything else that’s been going on.”
However, Doherty declined to comment on the fortunes of his party’s leader, Pierre Poilievre, who was trailing in the Ottawa-area riding of Carleton to Liberal challenger Bruce Fanjoy late into Monday night, until the results were final.
Poilievre later conceded the election, though signalled his intention to stay on as party leader. As of midnight, Poilievre was trailing by 2,579 votes.
Speaking about the whirlwind campaign that started on March 23, Doherty said the expanded size of his riding meant that he put about 5,000 kilometres on his truck as he drove from one end to the other.
Though U.S. President Donald Trump’s comments about Canadian annexation and the trade war he started dominated much of the discussion during the campaign, Doherty said Canada’s current situation had nothing to do with Trump himself.
“The electors have spoken today, we will live to fight another day and I can’t wait to get back to work in fighting for the good people who care for Prince George,” Doherty said. “I’m just overcome and honoured and humbled that this riding has actually elected me for a fourth time.”
When The Citizen arrived at Doherty’s election night party at the downtown Courtyard Marriott around 7:45 p.m., there were just shy of 20 people present.
Though the results to that point favoured the Liberals and many outlets like CBC and Global had projected a Liberal victory of some margin, the mood was calm.
A murmur rippled through the room when Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was shown at one point to be behind his Liberal challenger in Carleton, Bruce Fanjoy.
One solitary “Woo!” was let out when NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh was shown placing third in his riding of Burnaby Central.
Small chuckles broke out when former Conservative cabinet minister and People’s Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier was shown in fourth place in his Quebec riding.
After a large early lead for the Liberals contracted to fewer than 10 seats at times, some people in the room said they felt things weren’t as bleak for the Tories as it appeared earlier.
When the DJ fired up his sound system, his first track was “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas. The first line of that song goes “I got a feelin’ that tonight’s gonna be a good night.”
Harman Dhaliwal told the Citizen that he was attending the party to show support for Doherty.
He said he thought that while some Members of Parliament seem to check out after getting elected, Doherty had continued to fight for the community in Ottawa and had delivered results like the establishment of the national mental health hotline and advocacy for natural resource development.
“It was a lot larger of an issue that I thought it would be and I think these initiatives have really made a difference for the community,” Dhaliwal said.
“Todd goes above and beyond with the private members bills and he also represents our economic interests in the region. He goes hard in the paint when it comes to the fiduciary responsibilities to the taxpayers and holding the elected government to account.”
At that point in the night, Dhaliwal said he was still hoping for the results to flip in the Tories’ favour and potentially deliver them into government as well as Doherty into the federal cabinet.
Kathy Nadalin-Paulie, who introduced herself as a member of the Conservative riding association for Cariboo-Prince George since Doherty’s first election, said she thought local voters made “a very good choice.”
“He’s a people person,” Nadalin-Paulie said. “He’s kind. He’s thoughtful. When I had some medical problems with my family, he phoned constantly wanting to know how things were going. He’s my hero and he just looks after all of the loose ends in the background.”
She said she thought the suicide prevention hotline was his biggest achievement from the last term.
Facing what looked like a Liberal minority, Nadalin-Paulie expressed dismay.
“The Conservatives would have fixed the catch and release, lowered the taxes, built the houses,” she said. “They would have been working for Canadians. Carney is of the big oligarchs — that’s what’s running the United States. That’s why he gets along with Trump, in my opinion. I just don’t trust the man. I’m sorry, I just don’t. But I really, totally trust Todd.”
Flanked by family members, Doherty arrived at his party just before 9 p.m. After speaking with reporters, he shook hands and hugged supporters before making his way to a podium at the front of the room to give a speech with the help of his granddaughter.
Doherty expressed disappointment with his party’s failure to win government but also hope about the Tories winning their greatest number of seats in Parliament since the 166 won in the 2011 election — the last time the party held government.
With a minority Parliament, he said, the government could fall at any time. He said the problems caused by the last decade of Liberal rule would continue under Mark Carney as leader and prime minister, and that his party would do its best to hold them to account.
He said he spoke with Poilievre earlier in the day for about 45 minutes, who expressed gratitude for people who had gone out of their way to vote for the party, even if they were dealing with serious illnesses like cancer.
The last few years, he said, had not been easy for his family and he had relied on a lot of people in the room to help him through. He thanked them for their help in returning to Ottawa for a fourth straight term.
