Conservatives take Fredericton
Published Wednesday October 15th, 2008
Switch Former provincial Tory cabinet minister wins riding vacated by Liberal Andy Scott
FREDERICTON - With Collective Soul's Better Now trumpeting his arrival, Keith Ashfield waded into a sea of ecstatic supporters at the Fredericton Inn on Tuesday night after securing a seat in the House of Commons.
A longtime Conservative MLA and cabinet minister under Bernard Lord, Ashfield easily outdistanced Liberal rival David Innes, Jesse Travis of the New Democrats, Mary Lou Babineau of the Green Party and Canadian Action candidate Ben Kelly.
"I heard that there would only be one winner tonight and four losers, and I guess I won the big prize,'' Ashfield said to raucous applause as he stepped up to a podium with a poster of Prime Minister Stephen Harper as a backdrop. "But now the really hard work begins.
"But I've learned a lot in my nine years in politics, and I believe I can hit the ground running."
A former Minister of Natural Resources and deputy speaker of New Brunswick's Legislative Assembly, Ashfield won the position of the Member of Parliament for Fredericton that was vacated by Andy Scott, a popular Liberal who decided not to re-offer.
Scott called to offer Ashfield congratulations just as the newly elected MP arrived at his victory party.
"I think we did a good job campaigning," Ashfield told Scott. "It was a little overwhelming at times because it's a much larger riding than what I am used to - the equivalent of six and a half provincial ridings - but otherwise it was similar to a provincial campaign.
"It took a lot of hard work and a lot of good people to get me here."
Ashfield said he was not surprised at the lopsided victory because he had been well received while campaigning door to door.
"You never know, but I have been treated a lot worse at the doors over the years and still won elections,'' he said. "This time, people treated me very well."
Ashfield was mobbed by supporters who stayed late into the night to watch election returns on a big-screen TV. The crowd screamed and clapped each time results were shown predicting another Tory victory within the province. They were especially deafening when Rodney Weston, a fellow Tory Cabinet minister to Lord, had eclipsed Paul Zed's lead in Saint John and went on to victory.
The former director of the Fredericton Airport Authority, Innes came to Ashfield's party to concede shortly after 10 p.m. Soft spoken and polite, Innes was running for office for the first time and was relaxed as he sat in his campaign office off King Street late in the afternoon with volunteers bustling around him.
"I'm not worried,'' Innes, who was wearing a Liberal-red tie, said. "We have run the best campaign we could have run. Everyone from my manager to my wife and people I hardly knew at all have spent the last six or seven weeks dedicated to the cause.
"We did everything we could. The outcome is the outcome."
Although he had to have been disappointed by the margin of defeat, Innes said he had enjoyed campaigning.
"This has been a great life experience,'' he said. "I met thousands of people, people who are really good and really honest and really direct and aren't afraid to tell you what is on their mind.
"I've always had great respect for the directness and wisdom of the people of New Brunswick, and this experience has verified it."
An assistant professor at St. Thomas University and a mother to a nine-year-old daughter, Babineau was delighted to carry the Green banner and was happy to help the party win more votes in the riding than in the previous election.
A member of Green party leader Elizabeth May's shadow cabinet, Babineau often took her baby with her while she knocked on doors.
"I'm a little exhausted, but it was the best experience of my life,'' Babineau said. "It allowed me to be engaged in the community on a whole different level and it allowed me to connect with everyone.
"As a team, we have a sense that we are really contributing to our community and to our country. We really feel we are building something that is going to change the political landscape."
Travis, who wasn't nominated until after the election was called, was pleased with his performance.
"I worked really hard,'' he said. "To me, what is surprising more than anything else is that Liberals and Greens haven't done really well."
Marty Klinkenberg is contributing editor of the Telegraph-Journal. He can be reached at martyklinkenberg@hotmail.com.
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