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Photo by Tanner Smith.
By Curtis Galbraith
2025 Federal Election

Time for reflection coming for NDP says Grande Prairie candidate

Apr 30, 2025 | 6:00 AM

The NDP candidate in Grande Prairie says it is time for the party to reflect on how the campaign went.

The New Democrats were reduced to seven seats in the House of Commons from 25 after Monday’s vote.

Jennifer Villebrun says part of that reflection should look at things that should have been done differently.

“But I think one of the realities is that a lot of people voted because of fear over potential outcomes, and I think you see that that made a difference in our riding. A lot more people voted liberal than have historically in our riding.”

Villebrun ran third in Grande Prairie behind Conservative Chris Warkentin and Liberal Maureen McLeod.

The NDP dropped from 25 seats to 7. One of the seats they lost was party leader Jagmeet Singh’s own Burnaby Central riding in BC.

Villebrun believes Singh resigning as leader shows his disappointment over how the election turned out.

“I think it’s an opportunity for us to reflect on some of the directions that we want to take in the future and, I think, over the next few weeks and few months, there’s going to be some big changes coming for the party.”

“We’ll see who’s putting their name forward to take over that role.”

Villebrun is congratulating Warkentin on his victory.

“We would have obviously liked it if we had been the first choice, but we know that people had many different factors they were looking at. I think that reflects the results we saw not only in our riding, but across Canada.”

Villebrun says she would consider running again if there was another election held within a few months.

by Curtis Galbraith