Dick Harris won a historic seventh term with another big win in Cariboo-Prince George, helping the Stephen Harper-led Conservatives secure their much-sought after first majority government.
The NDP surge that netted the party an historic showing nationally that makes them the official opposition, helped make a small dent in Cariboo-Prince George but it was nowhere near enough to put the NDP in contention.
Harris took about 55 per cent of the votes, with the NDP finishing second with about 31 per cent of the vote, an improvement over the previous election. Green Party candidate Heidi Redl, whose party won their first seat ever in B.C. with leader Elizabeth May's victory in Saanich-Gulf Islands, finished a distant third. But she was ahead of the Liberal candidate Sangeeta Lalli, a university student parachuted into the riding from Vancouver.
While the NDP won more than 103 seats, the Conservatives grabbed 167 seats across the country, including 21 seats in B.C., for their majority.
"It's wonderful. My greatest fear was to have this country led by a coalition of the (Bloc Quebecois, NDP and Liberals)," said Harris at this campaign office Monday evening where he celebrated his victory.
The Harper-led Conservatives had stressed in its campaign that another minority Conservative government would lead quickly to another confidence motion defeat in Parliament and thereafter a coalition government.
Harris said the Conservatives will continue to carry out their economic action plan.
His priorities will be to see the Prince George Airport reach its potential as a major air cargo hub, and to see Taseko's proposed $800-million Prosperity copper mine make it through an environmental assessment and resolve First Nations' issues with the project.
First elected with Reform in 1993 in the Prince George-Bulkley Valley, Harris, 66, is in his 18th year as an MP, the last five as part of minority-Conservative governments.
Although the campaign in Cariboo-Prince George was muted, perhaps in part because Harris was facing two inexperienced candidates from the two major national parties, the NDP and the Liberals.
The Liberal candidate Lalli was a student at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, while NDP candidate Jon Van Barneveld, who grew up in Houston, west of Prince George, is a student at the University of Northern B.C.
Harris focused his campaign on the economy, saying his was the party to continue to steer the country out of the global recession. Several times he noted that his party had invested $1 billion alone in Prince George since they formed government in 2006.
He estimated his government had invested $3 billion to $4 billion in the entire riding, through infrastructure spending and also through extending employment programs.
Any opposition to the controversial $5.5-billion Enbridge Northern Gateway oil pipeline -- which Harris supported -- appeared not to create a significant change at the ballot box.
Van Barneveld said the fact the NDP would form the official opposition was "just astounding," although he said he wasn't expecting a Conservative majority.
He said he believed that a Harper majority would be their eventual downfall because absolute power corrupts absolutely. "I think we'll do quite well in the next election," he said of the NDP's future prospects.
