Thursday, May 16, 2013
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• LOCAL NEWS • mrtimes.com • 604-463-2281 • 28 PAGES
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Election 2013
Liberal grabs NDP seat Pitt Meadows Councillor Doug Bing will head to Victoria as the new Liberal MLA for the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows riding. by Maria Rantanen mrantanen@mrtimes.com
Maria Rantanen/TIMES
Doug Bing (above) celebrated his win with his wife Helen at his side. David Murray (inset) was checking numbers with Elizabeth Rosenau as results were coming in. Cheryl Ashlie (right) was Bing’s campaign manager. At the end of the evening, local mayors Deb Walters and Ernie Daykin came to congratulate Bing (below). being in opposition. The Green party candidate Michael Patterson received 1,953 votes (about nine per cent) while the BC Conservative candidate Manuel “Mike” Pratas received 540 votes (about 2.5 per cent). Pratas was listed on the ballot with no affiliation because of a glitch in the BC Conservatives’ paperwork, but the party said they endorsed him as their candidate. These numbers will most likely change after absentee ballots, mail-in ballots, and ballots cast at the district electoral office are counted. Elections BC will starting counting the final numbers on May 27. Bing said he will take the rest of the week off, but has to make decisions soon, for example, setting up his constituency office. Rosenau said she’s going to focus on her family, friends, and volunteering with Special Olympics.
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The Liberal strategy leading up to Tuesday’s election was to focus on the economy. But the NDP also wanted to talk about the economy, and because the Liberals wanted the discussion to centre around who would be better at managing the economy, it seemed to work in the Liberals’ favour, said Doug Bing. He beat the NDP candidate Elizabeth Rosenau to become the member of the legislative assembly for Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows, a seat held for two terms by retiring NDP MLA Michael Sather. “We just had smiles on our faces because that was our issue...” Bing said. At times, the message was repeated “ad nauseum,” Bing said, but “it stuck.” The day after the election, Rosenau said she felt the NDP’s campaign was “too passive” and not running a negative campaign with mudslinging – which Rosenau said makes people cynical about politics – “wasn’t a winning strategy.” “In the end, we probably didn’t frame the Liberals the way we should have – they framed us, we didn’t frame them,” she said. The Liberals started the campaign with their backs against the wall, Bing said, but he felt the party ran a better campaign and worked harder than the NDP. “The NDP thought they had the election won... that backfired on them,” he said. Bing, who’s also expected to remain as a Pitt Meadows councillor – at least for the time being, will sit as an MLA in government. He hopes he can be a “voice for the community,” and as part of government, he would like to advocate for things like transportation issues and fixing the intersection at Harris and Lougheed. Bing will be joining a majority Liberal government, with 50 seats to the NDP’s 33, in Victoria alongside Marc Dalton who was re-elected Tuesday night. With all the ballot boxes counted, Bing received 9,860 (about 46 per cent) votes while the NDP’s Elizabeth Rosenau received 9,179 (about 43 per cent) – a difference of 681 votes. On election night, when the results showed Bing was going to win the riding, he said he was “elated, excited, relieved.” “It’s been a long, hard fight – very tiring,” Bing said. “It makes all the time and effort worthwhile.” Bing said it was “very exciting” to be in government and the opportunities will be “huge” compared to
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