Shannon Stubbs has been elected to represent the newly-created constituency of Lakeland in Parliament.
Stubbs was one of 99 Conservatives elected across the country, and will serve as a member of the opposition to Justin Trudeau’s majority Liberal government.
She says that she doesn’t believe that will hinder her ability to advocate for her riding.
“Obviously, this isn’t the result we hoped for nationally for our party,” Stubbs said, “but, I will be a strong advocate for our constituency. Our Conservative Party has always allowed independent representation by Members of Parliament, so even if you check the voting records of the past decade of Parliament, you’ll see that the Conservative MPs voted independently on behalf of their constituents at much higher rates than MPs from either of the other two major parties, so I expect that we will continue in that tradition and therefore I’ll be able to represent strongly the people of Lakeland.
With the loss, the Conservative Party announced that long-time leader Stephen Harper would be stepping down, to serve as an MP for Calgary Heritage. Stubbs said she will miss his leadership.
“I’m sad to hear that, I think he’s been a very strong Prime Minister for Canada,” Stubbs said. “The fact that he would do that I think speaks to his character. He has said [many times] over the past couple of weeks that this election isn’t actually about Stephen Harper, that it was about Canadians… So, it doesn’t really surprise me at all that his assessment would be that this is in the best interests of the party and that he would continue to serve the people that elected him in Calgary.”
Stubbs also says that she feels a bit overwhelmed at the ending of the campaign, and that she will need to work on the logistics of the new riding, such as constituency offices.