Joan Crockatt Takes Calgary Centre
By Carl BR Johnson, Thomas DeBrocke, Daniel Leon Rodriguez and Ben Morris
Harvey Locke surely felt a little blue after the polls closed Monday, Nov. 26.
That was because Joan Crockatt, his Conservative opponent in the Calgary Centre federal byelection, emerged victorious in one of the closest election races in recent years.
- Calgary City Centre Conservative candidate Joan Crockatt speaks to her supporters at the party election HQ after her victory on Nov 25, 2012 in Calgary, AB. Crockett defeated Liberal Candidate Harvey Locke. For more pictures of the election, see photo gallery below. GAVIN JOHN, The Press
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Crockatt, a former journalist and political commentator, won the inner city seat by just 1,167 votes over Locke, a razor-thin margin compared to the Conservatives’ traditional totals in Calgary seats.
The Tory polled 10,201 votes, to 9,034 for Locke. Green Party candidate Chris Turner was third with 7,090 votes, while Dan Meades of the NDP was fourth, with 1,063.
Locke’s disappointment was tempered by the fact he came close in a seat in which the Liberal candidate in the last election lost by 20,000 votes.
“Sometimes you don’t win, but it ain’t bad to lose in the seventh game of the Stanley Cup either,” Locke told his supporters after the results were in.
Crockatt will take over as MP for Calgary Centre from Lee Richardson, who was elected in 2011 with 28,401 votes, to 8,631 for Grit hopeful Jennifer Pollock.
At the Barley Mill in Eau Claire Market on election night, Crockatt was greeted like a rock star, when the results were known.
“Wow. What an exciting night this has been, to put it mildly,” said Crockatt.
“I wasn’t too worried, but it was a nail-biting evening,” she said.
“I’m a new candidate, I’m not an incumbent, but I was representing a majority government. I’m just thrilled that I won tonight because I worked very very hard for it.”
Locke made the short walk over to the Barley Mill from The Garage, also in Eau Claire Market, where his camp received the election results, to congratulate his opponent on her election victory.
“Congratulations, Joan, on your win, I hope you thrive in Ottawa,” Locke told the victor.
Before conceding, Locke told his own supporters that while they had lost the byelection, they had sent the Harper government a message: That Calgary does not fit the conservative stereotype that many Canadians give it.
“We can know this, that Calgary is not a redneck city,” Locke told his supporters.
The Liberals have a great future in the city and this is only the beginning for the party.
“Calgary is very much in play for the Liberal Party of Canada,” he said.
Turner echoed Locke’s comments in his concession speech at the Commonwealth Bar & Stage on 10th Avenue S.W.
“Calgary will not being taken for granted again,” Turner told about 150 supporters.
“This byelection was the beginning of a new kind of politics. This was really about an election of what Calgary has become…I’m really proud of my city,” he said.
Meades told supporters at his election night party that he was grateful for their support.
“Every single day I’ve been humbled,” he told about 40 people at the Melrose Café.
The NDP is the country’s “only progressive party,” and one day it will supplant the Conservatives, he said.
Meades also had a warning for the government.
“We are here, we are watching and we are ready to take (Harper’s) place in 2015.”
The closeness of the race had some supporters of the defeated candidates expressing frustration about vote splitting.
“The NDP preferred Crockatt in Parlament to a Green or a Liberal,” one Green Party supporter posted on Twitter. “Dan Meades should have retired to avoid a vote split.”
However, the results showed that while Crockatt won only a narrow victory, her total exceeded the sum of Liberal and NDP support by 104 votes.
There was also some grumbling among Liberals as the evening wore on, and Crockatt gradually pulled ahead in the vote count.
In the end, however, most appeared happy to have given the race their best shot.
One Grit who came all the way from New Brunswick for the byelection seemed satisfied with his party’s effort.
“I come from a strong Liberal family,” said Rejean Leger.
“I called around to people in my town and raised the money to buy a ticket to come here.”
Leger said that he sees things changing in Canada, and that he wants the government to reflect the wishes of the people.
“I don’t want to come here to tell people how to vote, but nationally I really don’t like what Harper is doing.”
The Tories were just relieved that the battle was over.
Dale Fisher, who was at the Barley Mill, said of Crockatt, “She’s a class ‘A’ human being.”
Two other candidates also ran in the byelection.
Antoni Grochowski of the Independent Party garnered 141 votes, good for 0.5 per cent of the vote, while Tony Prashad’s Libertarian Party bagged 121 votes at 0.4 per cent of the total.
