Teacher ends Hubbard's run in Miramichi
Published Wednesday October 15th, 2008
Election Tilly O'Neill-Gordon engineers a major upset for Conservatives in Liberal stronghold
MIRAMICHI - The trend established itself soon after the polls closed and early results began to trickle in from across the Miramichi riding.
Supporters at the Conservative campaign headquarters in the old Centennial Foods building had a hard time repressing smiles as they posted results showing their candidate Tilly O'Neill-Gordon in the lead.
Across the river in the former Tim Horton's on the Town Square, Liberal looked glumly as campaign staff posted the same numbers showing their candidate Charles Hubbard losing.
Hubbard did not formally give his speech formal concession speech until after 10 p.m., but the former teacher realized before then that the voters had decided to end his career in Parliament after five terms.
"All I can say is it doesn't look too good... unless there is a major change, we've lost," he said at abo0ut 9:30 p.m. when he was about 2,000 votes behind.
By this time across the river, supporters packed into the Conservative headquarters where O'Neill-Gordon beamed.
"I'm happy, I'm proud," she told a scrum of news reporters in the middle of the room after defeating the long-time Liberal Member of Parliament.
She will use her position on the government side of the Commons to address the economic reasons facing this reasons.
Among other things she will meet with the Collaboration 108 group that wants to improve Route 108 from Renous to Plaster Rock. She plans to meet city council to establish priorities.
The assessments of Hubbard and O'Neill-Gordon on what happened in this election, after five elections, or six since counting the final election that the late Liberal Maurice Dionnes won in 1988, did not differ much.
The conservatives successfully attacked Liberal Leader Stephane Dion, whom Hubbard backed early, and the Liberals did not successfully explain their carbon tax proposal, Hubbard said.
"I suppose the third one is maybe Hubbard himself. I have to take a lot of responsibility for this," he said in an interview.
"Mainly the carbon tax" and his support for Dion hurt Hubbard, said O'Neill-Gordon.
Hubbard, while still principal at Miramichi Valley High School, surprised many people when he won the Liberal nomination in 1993. He has a masters degree in history, and still works the farm on which he grew up at Red Bank.
The nomination opened up when Dionne, by this time diagnosed with Alzheimer disease, did not reoffer to run in the general election of that year.
It took nine and one-half hours and four ballots in the Miramichi Civic Centre for Hubbard to win what most people called an upset when he beat Paul Lordon Jr., Premier Frank McKenna's deputy minister, 1,067 to 861.
He stood against the Liberal position on same-sex marriage and gun control.
After voting against the Liberal gun control law, he convinced the government to locate the firearms centre in the former Chatham Post Office - bringing good civil service jobs to replace some of the economic activity lost when CFB Chatham closed.
His career stood through the loss of Heath Steele Mines and a near war over lobster and aboriginal rights on Miramichi Bay.
He witnessed the rise of call centres, technology and FatKat Animation which together employ more people than the mostly shut down forestry mills lining the river.
Voting against locally unpopular measures helped Hubbard keep Miramichi for the Liberals, but likely destroyed his prospects for a seat in Prime Minister Jean Chretien's cabinet.
Hubbard carried a winning tradition for the Liberals on the Miramichi Valley, where voters have stuck with the party more often than not since Confederation in 1867.
Even with a sixth election victory, Hubbard would not have set the record for federal political longevity in these parts. George Roy McWilliam won seven elections for the Liberals in the Northumberland, and later Northumberland-Miramichi, riding from 1949 to 1965.
O'Neill-Gordon, a cradle Conservative, joined the Young Progressive Conservatives as a student and held most party offices over the years, including president of the provincial PC women's association. "I was born a blue baby, she said.
Hubbard made the trip to Conservative headquarters to formally congratulate O'Neill-Gordon shortly after 11 p.m.
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