UCP wins majority in general election

“The polls were kind of headed in that direction,” he said. “You never take anything for granted, but it’s nice to get re-elected and now I’ve got to earn the trust that’s been given to me.”

In third place was the Alberta Party’s Darrell Dunn with 475 votes followed by Danny Hozack, Wildrose Loyalty Party at 459, Independent, Matthew Powell, 354 and Green candidate Tigra-Lee Camp- bell, 146.

Dunn reached out to the Source in an email to congratulate Rowswell on his victory, noting it was a fun campaign for the Lloydminster resident.

“I’m certainly disappointed on a personal level, but this is politics and that is the nature of the game,” said Dunn.

He says he met a lot of really great people throughout the campaign and was particularly impressed with a class of students in Vermilion he chatted with at the midpoint of the campaign.

“Don’t ever say young people aren’t interested; it was one of the most interesting forums we had,” said Dunn.

“My personal thanks to all of the other candidates for a clean campaign. That’s the way they should be run.”

Rowswell says provincially, it was nice to se e the Conservative vote congeal under his party instead of being spread around, but some key UCP cabinet ministers failed to get re-elected.

“I was really disappointed the health minister Jason Copping didn’t get re-elected. We’ll see what happens,” said Rowswell.

He says his priority this week is to pick up his 1,200 election signs.

“We’ve got three days to take all our signs down. I’ve got people who want to reuse the signs for some stuff so that’s good,” he said.

The legislature won’t convene until mid-tolate October, but Rowswell is sure the party will hold a caucus retreat at the Calgary Stampede this summer.

“We’ll have a lot of meetings and get our fall agenda set up and policies we want to get in place,” he said.

“Hopefully, I get to chair the Alberta First Cabinet Policy Committee again and get to work on that again.”

That committee reviews policy decisions, long-range strategic priorities, legislation and regulations.

Rowswell spent election night with volunteers at his Vermilion campaign office, but it took until just after 11 p.m. for the election to be called.

“I think Rocky Mountain House started late, so they gave them extra time at the end,” he said.

“I’m just speculating. I’m thinking what might have happened is they didn’t want to release the advance numbers until that poll closed.

“I think there was some kind of hiccup there.”

The official election results will be being made public on June 8.