Photo: Shaun Penner

By Shaun Penner

Provincial Election

Allard, Toews win as part of “Blue Wave” across Alberta

Apr 17, 2019 | 12:49 AM

It was a blue wave across the Peace Country and the rest of Alberta, as the United Conservatives took a convincing majority government, knocking out the NDP after just one term in power.

Tracy Allard will be the new MLA in Grande Prairie, and Travis Toews will take on that same role in GP-Wapiti, following convincing wins in both their ridings.

“It’s a real honour to be the representative for Grande Prairie. We’re so proud to be from this city and I can’t wait to get in there and roll up our sleeves and get to work,” said Allard.

“It’s humbling to actually recognize that we’re going forward representing the great people here in Grande Prairie-Wapiti,” said Toews. “I take that extremely seriously; the confidence residents have put in me going forward and representing them.”

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Both arrived to a boisterous crowd of supporters at the Holiday Inn in Grande Prairie on Tuesday night, who were obviously very pleased with not just a Peace Country sweep, but also a large majority victory for a United Conservative party that took over 60 of the 87 seats. While that may not be too shocking to some, the bigger shock would be the fact that the Legislature will only have two parties. The Alberta Party, Liberals and Freedom Conservatives failed to garner any seats.

For Toews, that doesn’t come as a surprise.

“Albertans have spoken. We have two clear results with a Conservative majority, so it doesn’t entirely surprise me,” said Toews, adding, “I do want to congratulate my colleagues from other parties that ran. They ran good, positive campaigns. I’ve appreciated getting to know them, look forward to staying in contact with them.”

Allard echoed that sentiment, stating she would have been surprised if her party did not get a majority.

“We know anything can happen. I’ve been knocking on doors for months in Grande Prairie and the sentiment that I’ve heard over and over and over again, that’s been overriding issue for people at their doors, is jobs and the economy. They care about other issues, but jobs and the economy are the thing that have come up at literally every door and so it’s not a surprise to see these results for me.”

Both are eager to get to work in Edmonton, saying that they expect to be meeting at the legislature within the next couple of weeks. Both say they have several issues they want to see fixed locally in a timely manner once they take office, those being the hospital project (to see it both completed, as well as getting the unpaid contractors paid), as well as the twinning of Highway 40.

Before that happens though, the UCP will be starting at step one once they take power with Bill One: the repeal of the federal carbon tax. Both Allard and Toews will have an ally in the federal legislature to try and accomplish that, with the backing of Grande Prairie-Mackenzie MP Chris Warkentin. Warkentin shared his excitement to see both Allard and Toews come out on top.

“They (the voters) were done with the NDP and they were ready for strong representation here in the Peace Country,” said Warkentin. “We have two excellent MLA’s that will be elected from Grande Prairie. I look forward to working with them.

Now retired and former GP-Wapiti MLA Wayne Drysdale was also on hand to share in the celebration, saying he was very happy for both Toews and Allard and is looking forward to seeing them represent area residents.

Amongst all the celebration, Allard did take time to congratulate her opponents on a good campaign and thanked them for keeping it clean and respectful throughout.

“They’ve been real gentlemen (Todd Russell, Grant Berg, Bernard Hancock, Rony Rajput and Ray Robertson), and I’m so proud of Grande Prairie and Grande Prairie-Wapiti as well. We haven’t gotten into the mud-slinging like other jurisdictions,” said Allard. “That just makes me really happy and proud to be part of this city and this clean competition.”

Elsewhere across the Peace Country, Todd Loewen of the United Conservatives won a race between two incumbent MLAs in Central Peace-Notley.

Loewen, who had been the MLA for the former GP-Smoky constituency, defeated incumbent New Democrat Marg McQuaig-Boyd by a wide margin. McQuaig-Boyd had served as the Energy Minister in Rachel Notley’s government.

Incumbent MLAs were also defeated in two other ridings in northwestern Alberta, as Dan Williams of the UCP defeated New Democrat Debbie Jabbour in Peace River and Pat Rehn, also of the UCP, defeated New Democrat Danielle Larivee in Lesser Slave Lake.

For full election results, check out EverythingGP’s live tracker.