Despite strong challenge, Conservatives keep Northern Alberta “Tory blue”

Conservative MP elect David Yurdiga will soon be heading to Ottawa after winning the Northern Alberta riding of Fort McMurray Athabasca by 1,500 votes.

The former reeve and Athabasca County Councillor is relieved the race is now over and he tells 660News he’s looking forward to serving his new constituents.

“I commend the Liberal team for working very hard, my team worked very hard and we were successful in this by-election,” he says, “First thing I’m going to do is get some sleep.”

“It’s been a long campaign, initially we had the nomination at the end of February, after nomination we jumped right in and I’ve been out and about in the community and today is my last day of campaigning,” says Yurdiga.

The long-time politician commended Liberal rival Kyle Harrietha for his strong challenge saying he put his best foot forward and it provided people with democracy.

“First thing I’m going to do is meet with the Chambers of Commerce, the Temporary Foreign Worker Program is the talk of the town and up north here we’re in a unique situation that requires them to keep our businesses running,” he adds.

Yurdiga plans to get feed back to take to Ottawa to make sure the interests of his new riding are taken into consideration.

Don’t count Harrietha out just yet though, he like many other Liberals in the province, is counting Monday night as a victory given the gains the party made in the popular vote.

“We finished in third place with 10 per cent of the vote in 2011 and in this election we had the unexpected resignation of the Conservative candidate who broke his contract with the voters a year early.”

David Yurdiga won with 5,945 votes compared to Harrietha’s 4,491.

According to Harrietha’s figures, he believes they won in Fort McMurray itself and it was in the southern edge of the riding where his support dropped off.

He adds it was a great night despite the dirty campaign full of attack ads run by the governing Tories.

The Liberal candidate says he plans to run again next year in the Federal election against Yurdiga in the regional municipality of Wood Buffalo, Lac La Biche and Wabasca.

Voter turn out in the riding was 15.19%.

Lori McDaniel with the NDP could not be reached for comment.

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