Tamara Jansen is returning to Parliament.
With 122 of 122 polls reporting, Jansen was the clear winner of the Cloverdale-Langley City byelection, taking two-thirds of all votes counted (66.3 per cent), leaving the Liberals' Madison Fleischer a distant second with 16 per cent of the vote, followed by the NDP's Vanessa Sharma with 12.5 per cent.
A victorious Jansen was celebrating at her Langley City campaign office with supporters and volunteers Monday night.
Through a campaign spokesperson, Jansen refused to be interviewed by Black Press Media, saying no media interviews were being granted.
Fellow Conservative MP Tako van Popta, who represents the neighbouring Langley-Aldergrove riding, was among the visitors.
He emerged from the celebration, calling Jansen "a good addition to caucus."
Voter turnout was low (16.27 per cent), with 14,979 of 92,061 registered electors casting ballots.
Liberal rival Fleischer said she was looking forward to a “rematch.”
"It might not have been the result that we were expecting or hoping. But you know what? We have a general election to look ahead to," Fleischer told supporters. "It's always a good day to be a liberal. And I am proud to be a liberal because values matter and we need we need to be forward thinking."
She thanked campaign volunteers saying "the most important thing that we can be is proud of all the hard work and all the sacrifices that each and every one of you did [with] the phone calls, knocking on doors, we've talked to thousands of constituents."
NDP candidate Sharma said she was grateful to the many voters who cast ballots for her in what was her first ever campaign.
“I’m brand new,” she said. “It was a very, very grassroots campaign. I think for limited time, limited resources, limited help, and limited funds, I’m very proud of the campaign that I ran.”
Sharma said win or lose, she connected with a lot of great people. She said she’ll build on those connections for the general election next year.
“I’ve made it very clear that I want to stay in this riding,” she added.
Libertarian Party of Canada candidate Alex Joehl said while he was disappointed in his showing—he had 59 votes, 0.4 per cent—but he added the results came in as expected.
“Watching Tamara have an absolute landslide victory, it’s what we all expected,” Joehl told Black Press Media. “I’m impressed by the CPC supporters. She and her supporters stepped up and got it done.”
Reflecting on his own campaign in comparison, he said it’s all about how hard you work.
“You get what you put in,” Joehl said. “My campaign wasn’t what it could have been.” He said work and some family adversity prevented him from running a more engaging campaign.
Ian Kennedy, People’s Party candidate, also said the byelection was a “landslide” for Jansen and he offered Jansen his congratulations.
“I hope she works hard for the people of Cloverdale-Langley City,” Kennedy said. “I wish her nothing but the best.”
Kennedy said he views the byelection as a practice run for the next general election, which could take place by the end of 2025. Kennedy received 133 votes (0.9 per cent).
“It was great for me to get out there and talk to people,” he added.
Pat McCutcheon, Green Party candidate, also said he was disappointed with the results, but they were "as expected." McCutcheon received 580 votes for 3.9 per cent of ballots cast.
“I would have liked to see my numbers higher,” he said. “I think the Green Party has a lot to offer. We got a lot of good policies.”
McCutcheon wouldn’t say if he’d run again, but he will take some time in the new year to consider his options.
“Right now, I’m exhausted because I’ve just run two elections back-to-back,” he said. “I’ll have to measure that accordingly.”
Prior to entering politics, Jansen owned and operated the Darvonda Nurseries greenhouse with her husband and family in Langley's Milner neighbourhood.
Jansen won narrowly in her first campaign in 2019, then lost narrowly in 2021.
Her 2024 campaign included door knocking and pancake breakfasts at her campaign offices, but not an all-candidates meeting organized by the Cloverdale District Chamber of Commerce and the Surrey Board of Trade, which every other candidate attended.
Jansen did not respond to requests for comment from the Cloverdale Reporter as to why she did not attend.
Fleischer, who operates a public relations firm in Langley, was the subject of controversy during the campaign for claiming to have Metis heritage.
Callum Robinson, vice-president of the Waceya Metis Society, whose office is located in Cloverdale, issued a statement on waceya.ca that said the society was “disappointed” Fleischer was unable to “provide any evidence to substantiate her Metis heritage.”
Robinson told Black Press Media, “there were many inconsistencies in her story. These included: “claimed correspondence with our president, which didn't exist; and “stated her great-grandmother from North Dakota as proof of Metis heritage.”
Fleischer responded that she self-identifies as Metis because of what she knows about her great-grandmother’s heritage and was "currently collecting the necessary documentation to go through the application process to receive Metis Nation British Columbia (MNBC) citizenship."
While the vote attracted attention locally and nationally as another test of the Liberal governments declining popularity, local voters were less interested, based on advance polling that saw just over 5,000 people casting votes over four days, about a quarter of the number who cast advance ballots in the last election in Cloverdale-Langley City.
Trudeau's Liberals have lost two other recent byelections, and are running well behind the Conservatives according to opinion polls, fuelling demands by political rivals that the prime minister resign as party leader. Further to the troubles facing the Justin Trudeau, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland posted a bombshell resignation letter a couple of hours before the byelection polls opened in Cloverdale-Langley City on Dec. 16.
