John Rustad wasn't wasting any time.
With a major winter storm predicted to sweep through his Nechako Lake riding Sunday afternoon and heavy snow expected, he was busy Saturday night taking down his own campaign signs along Highway 16 from Vanderhoof to his home at Cluculz Lake.
“I was over at some friends’ place in Vanderhoof for the first part of the results and I decided I didn’t want to watch anymore and jumped in the car and started cleaning up campaign signs,” said Rustad.
“(On Sunday) I’ll get up in the morning and head out to Houston and come back and take down signs. It’s part of the campaign so they don’t end up under snow and are there until spring. I’m hoping I can ride the edge of the storm on the way back so it’s doesn’t hit me.”’
The 57-year-old Rustad locked up his fifth term at the Liberal MLA for Nechako Lakes. He had 4,120 votes (52.69 per cent) with all 83 ballot boxes reporting, well ahead of the second-place Anne Marie Sam, the NDP candidate, who totaled 2,594 votes (33.18 per cent). Rustad has won his riding but was powerless to turn back the NDP tide that gripped the province, giving John Horgan's government a majority.
"I never count the chickens before they hatch and there's still a lot of votes to come in in this riding, but if the numbers hold I'm quite humbled and honoured to continue to have the opportunity to represent the people of Nechako Lakes," said Rustad. "It's a big job in front of us though and I think about the priorities for Nechako Lakes and how we'll have to figure out how to work with the NDP to actually push some of these priorities and not get them lost in the NDP's agenda.
“There’s lots of talk about the rural-urban divide and I don’t like to talk about that because when you think about the area of Nechako Lakes, agriculture, forestry, mining, those are the core of the riding, but when you talk about other areas of the province those aren’t priorities,” said Rustad, who identified forest and resource sector policy reform as his top priority.
“When you look at what the NDP stands for and what they’re working on, those aren’t priorities. So finding a way to make sure the things that help support the families and the communities in my riding become a priority or at least get some attention, that’s going to be the challenge for the next four years.”
Polls before the election predicted Horgan would get the majority he was seeking and Rustad said the early election results show that the NDP benefited from the provincial health office’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in keeping the death toll low in comparison to other provinces.
“Right now I think the majority of the people in the province are concerned about COVID-19 and they should be,” said Rustad. “It’s a very serious issue, but we also have a serious economic issue and I don’t think the reality of that has really sunk in for a lot of people. Once the COVID situation starts getting under control, figuring out how to recover is going to be the big challenge going forward.
“The NDP have always been about tax and spend but that’s not going to work for the economic recovery. When you look at something like a pandemic where there is a significant challenge and issues, the incumbent government usually gets re-elected. However, coming out of it, the incumbent government almost always gets killed. They went early, taking advantage of it, because they knew a year from now the circumstances would be very different for them.
“They’ve got to make a lot of very tough choices and I strongly suspect that come this spring you’re going to see tax changes, a lot of tax increases for them to carry on with the programs they want to do and that’s going to have some pretty negative consequences four our economy. I hope I’m wrong about that but I expect it to happen.”
Rustad made the decision early in his campaign not to knock on doors to respect people who have been in isolation since the pandemic broke out in March. He admitted as the incumbent MLA that name recognition helped him win favour with voters over the other four candidates at the ballot box.
“Democracy is often considered a blood sport and doesn’t work unless people are willing to stand for office and I want to thank the people that put their name forward in Nechako Lakes and across the province,” he said. “For those who have won, congratulations on winning the seat. My hope is to actually work together on some issues even though I know there will be lots of partisan moments in the years ahead.”
