His name was on the ballot and he will be the one sitting in the legislature, but Stephen Khan said it was a total team effort that got him elected Monday night and kept St. Albert Tory blue.
At his victory party, Khan thanked his volunteers and said it never would have happened without them.
“The point I am trying to get to is that it is my name up there. It says that I won, but I didn’t win – we won. It was a team effort from start to finish,” he said.
He said the PC party retained its majority in the legislature because it was successful in spreading its message to voters that its vision was best for the province.
“We got the message through to the people of St. Albert. It is a hopeful message. It is a message of vision,” said Khan, who was among the first declared winners Monday night, after just five polls had been counted.
He said Premier Alison Redford’s message of putting Alberta on the global stage and embracing the world resonated with voters.
“This is about Alberta moving forward as a leader, not just in Canada and as a Canadian leader, but taking that message to the world and being a global leader.”
He promised to be the city’s voice in the legislature.
“I will take your concerns and your perspective and most importantly your voice to this government,” he said.
He also thanked his opponents and said it had been a good campaign.
“These are remarkable people who took a brave step and put themselves out there.”
Khan, a businessman, won the party’s nomination in January after incumbent Ken Allred decided not to seek another term.
Once all the results were in, Khan had won with 10,481 votes, well ahead of Wildrose candidate James Burrows, who had 4,130. Liberal Kim Bugeaud had 2,011, NDP candidate Nicole Bownes had 1,679 and Alberta Party candidate Tim Osborne had 1,195 votes.
Burrows arrived at Khan’s celebration to thank him for the campaign and congratulate him, saying Khan had run a very well-organized campaign.
“Obviously, they are really well-prepared and they got their vote out,” Burrows said.
The Wildrose Party, which was pegged to form government in most opinion polls, will instead sit as the official opposition to a PC majority that’s only slightly smaller than when the election began. Burrows said the provincial result is disappointing, but the party will be able to move on.
“I think maybe Danielle [Smith] will have an opportunity over the next four years to show who she is,” he said. “Our leader is now in the [legislature] officially with her seat and we will be able to build from there.”
Bugeaud said she believes her party was hurt as voters cast ballots strategically and against parties rather than embracing the party they most supported. She said she’s not disappointed but it is cause for concern that people were not able “to feel that they can vote for what they can believe in.”
She said between now and the next campaign the party will have to rebuild and get ready. For her that means being engaged in the community outside of elections.
“What I have learned is that being involved at the local level is not just a 28-day decision.”
Osborne, whose party was shut out of the legislature in the first campaign, said he was obviously disappointed.
“I thought we ran a very strong campaign and we did all we could.”
Osborne said running as a new party meant the Alberta Party didn’t have a brand loyalty behind them and had to introduce themselves in every race.
“I feel like we have earned every last one of those votes. People vote along party lines a lot of the times and for us, we didn’t have that history so we really had to go out and earn every one of those votes.”
Provincial voter turnout in this race was higher than previous races with 57 per cent of Albertans voting. In total the PCs won 61 seats, the Wildrose 17, the Liberals had five and the NDP finished with four.
