<\/p>\n
Matthew Pearson<\/strong><\/p>\n Nepean-Carleton<\/strong><\/p>\n Voters in Nepean-Carleton are sending Conservative Pierre Poilievre back to the House of Commons for the third time before his 30th<\/sup> birthday.<\/p>\n Poilievre, dressed in a sharp navy blue pin-stripe suit, marched into a victory party at a Barrhaven country club behind a bag-pipe player. His 120 or so supporters chanted \u201cPierre, Pierre\u201d as the 29-year-old meandered his way to the front of the room with his girlfriend, Jenni Byrne, at his side.<\/p>\n Poilievre told the crowd his campaign took the Conservative message to voters \u201cone door at a time.\u201d He also acknowledged voters in the riding gave him a larger mandate than they did in the 2006 and 2004 elections.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>\u201cYou have given me more votes than I could have hoped for, you have ignored the naysayers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n With 180 of the 267 polls reporting, Elections Canada reported that Poilievre won 56 per cent of the vote. Liberal Ed Mahfouz, a former teacher, placed a distant second at 23 per cent. Green Party candidate Lori Gadzala placed third with 12 per cent and NDP candidate Phil Brown forth with 10 per cent.<\/p>\n Poilievre thanked Ms. Byrne, his family and supporters before congratulating his three opponents.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of you had the guts to put your names on the line,\u201d he said, eliciting loud cheers from his supporters who left their seats to crowd around a podium where the incumbent was speaking.<\/p>\n He ended his short victory address with a quote from former Conservative prime minister John Diefenbaker, who died in 1979 \u2014\u00a0the same year he was born.<\/p>\n Poilievre called Nepean-Carleton voters \u201cthe backbone of this country\u201d and said in an interview afterwards he is humbled by the result. He said voters want an energetic MP who \u201ctells it like it is.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that\u2019s the kind of MP I will continue to be,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n His approach hasn\u2019t always kept him out of trouble.<\/p>\n In 2006, he was chastised for using an obscenity in a Commons committee hearing. More recently, he criticized aboriginal work ethic on the same day Prime Minister Stephen Harper was making an historic apology in the House about residential schools. He also tried to halt federal health transfers to Ontario because of what he called \u201cthe McGuinty sex-change program.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked if his landslide re-election might propel him into cabinet, Poilievre demurred.<\/p>\n \u201cTonight I was appointed minister for Nepean-Carleton and that\u2019s the only cabinet portfolio that matters to me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThese people are relying on me to deliver. That\u2019s an enormous responsibility and I take it very seriously,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Before the results began pouring in, Nepean-Carleton MPP Lisa McLeod sat at a table of boisterous supporters near the front of the room. She said her support for her federal counterpart is unwavering.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s not a federal politician in the National Capital Region that works as hard at getting results as Pierre Poilievre,\u201d she said, with a beaming smile.<\/p>\n The banquet hall lit up with applause at various points throughout the night, particularly when Conservative cabinet ministers John Baird and Tony Clement were named victors in their respective Ontario ridings.<\/p>\n There were also hoots and hollers when television broadcaster CTV announced Green Party leader Elizabeth May lost in her bid to unseat popular Conservative cabinet minister Peter MacKay.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>Among the mostly grey-haired supporters gathered at the victory party was a group of energetic campaign volunteers in their late teens.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>\u201cI looked at the platforms and it made sense to me,\u201d said Peter Pakalnis of his support for the Tories.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>Ashley Croke, 17, agreed. She comes from a Liberal family, but prefers Stephen Harper\u2019s Conservatives. She added she doesn\u2019t get a lot of grief from her parents.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>\u201cThey don\u2019t always agree with my Conservative views, but they don\u2019t denounce it in any way,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Matthew Pearson is a student in the Master of Journalism program at the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Matthew Pearson Nepean-Carleton Voters in Nepean-Carleton are sending Conservative Pierre Poilievre back to the House of Commons for the third time before his 30th birthday. Poilievre, dressed in a sharp navy blue pin-stripe suit, marched into a victory party at a Barrhaven country club behind a bag-pipe player. His 120 or so supporters chanted \u201cPierre, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-election2008","category-election-2008-campaign-strategy","category-election-2008-student-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=709"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":711,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709\/revisions\/711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}