Red was once again the dominant color on Monday night as the Justin Trudeau-led Liberal Party took the win in the federal election after Canadians from coast to coast went to the polls and exercised their vote.
It wasn’t the absolute stronghold that the Liberals were hoping for though, as they were victorious in forming a minority government.
At the time of this article late Monday night, the Liberals had approximately 156 seats, while the Conservatives had 121. By Tuesday, the number for the Liberals went up to 157 while the Conservatives remained at 121.
In other upset news, it was the Bloc Quebecois party who ended up taking third place behind the Conservatives in number of seats, totaling 32 altogether. The NDP wound up with 24 seats, the Green Party took 3, and there was 1 seat for Independent.
CTV’s coverage of Election Night called a win by the Liberals at 8:05 pm Saskatchewan time on Monday, and by 8:16, a minority government was called.
In major upset news, it was a back and forth battle in the Regina-Wascana riding as the Conservative Party’s Michael Kram took the fight to the lone Liberal politician in the province, Ralph Goodale, who had been deeply entrenched in the political scene as he served as MP of the Regina-Wascana riding since 1993. By 9:15, it was officially declared that Kram had defeated Goodale in a shocking defeat, a move that many people saw as voters on the Prairies sending a message of sorts to Ottawa.
At the local level, Conservative candidates were re-elected on both sides of the South Saskatchewan River. Kelly Block was victorious once again in the Carlton Trail-Eagle Creek constituency that encompasses communities such as Macrorie, Conquest, Delisle, Milden and Dinsmore. Meanwhile, Tom Lukiwski was re-elected in the Moose Jaw-Lake Centre-Lanigan riding that includes communities such as Outlook, Kenaston, Hanley, and Elbow. Both came out ahead quite early as the numbers rolled in and were victorious in landslide wins against their respective opponents, which is unsurprising as rural Saskatchewan is typically a ‘blue base’ comprised of Conservative supporters.
By the end of the night, the entire province had officially 'gone blue'.
One point of contention that voters were pointing out on social media was the popular voting numbers, which actually saw Team Andrew Scheer defeat Team Justin Trudeau; a total of 6,155,662 votes for the Conservatives, and 5,915,950 votes for the Liberals. However, with Canada's political power being decided by way of seats, the numbers favored the Liberal Party.
The precise voting numbers at the local level that include communities in and around the Lake Diefenbaker region were as follows:
Carlton Trail-Eagle Creek
Kelly Block (Conservative, INC) - 34,814 (78.7%)
Jasmine Calix (NDP) - 5,384 (12.2%)
Rebecca Malo (Liberal) - 2.015 (4.6%)
Dean Gibson (Green) - 857 (1.9%)
Cody Payant (PPC) - 792 (1.8%)
Glenn Wright (Independent) - 355 (0.8%)
Total number of valid votes: 44,217 out of 57,601 registered (not including those registered on Election Day.)
Moose Jaw-Lake Centre-Lanigan
Tom Lukiwski (Conservative, INC) - 30,801 (71.2%)
Talon Regent (NDP) - 7,394 (17.1%)
Cecilia Melanson (Liberal) - 2,383 (5.5%)
Chey Craik (PPC) - 1,565 (3.6%)
Gillian Walker (Green) - 1,130 (2.6%)
Total number of valid votes: 43,273 out of 58,886 registered (not including those registered on Election Day.)
Voter turnout in the 2019 federal election came in at 65.95%, down a bit from 68.5% four years ago. Of the 27,126,166 registered voters, the election saw 17,890,264 people cast their ballot. Note that this final number doesn't include voters who registered on Election Day.
