Skip to content

Crowder back for fourth term as MP

Elected to her fourth term as the NDP MP for the Nanaimo-Cowichan riding on election day, Jean Crowder is the first to admit she was cautiously optimistic of her chances of the voters sending her back to Ottawa.

Elected to her fourth term as the NDP MP for the Nanaimo-Cowichan riding on election day, Jean Crowder is the first to admit she was cautiously optimistic of her chances of the voters sending her back to Ottawa.

“It was such a volatile election that despite the fact I was getting support on the doorsteps and people were telling me I was doing a good job, I felt like I still had to wait until the polls closed Monday to feel like it was going to be true,” she said Tuesday.

Crowder finished with 31,212 votes, (48.9 per cent) with Conservative John Koury placing second with 24,418, according to preliminary results from Elections Canada.

Anne Marie Benoit of the Green Party earned 4,998 votes, Liberal Brian Fillmore 3,014 and Jack East of the Marxist-Leninist Party 171 votes.

The NDP’s 102 seats makes it the  official Opposition, something the pre-election polls predicted, but something Crowder took a wait-and-see approach to.

“We had some sort of signal there was a shift happening out there, but I always say the only poll that counts is on election day,” she said. “It’s historic. What we saw was people responding to the positive, practical proposals that we put forward.”

As official Opposition, Crowder said the party will be taking its new role seriously.

“Anytime you have a majority government, the official Opposition has a responsibility to closely examine what the government brings forward,” she said. “This is an opportunity to work with people across the country and build alliances around problems with legislation and get support from the public.

“Let’s not kid ourselves, there are still ways to stop majority governments from doing things that the Canadian public at large doesn’t want.”

She said it’s important the public remembers the country has a Conservative majority with less than a quarter of the registered voting population supporting it.

“That is a problem and speaks to the continuing need for proportional representation in this country,” she said.

The Aboriginal Affairs critic for the NDP prior to the election, Crowder said she would love to remain in the job, but will take any role leader Jack Layton assigns her.

“Jack will make a decision who is going to be in that shadow cabinet,” she said. “He has a whole whack of MPs now.”