With incumbent Conservative MP Blake Richards winning re-election Monday night in Airdrie–Cochrane, local leaders called on Ottawa to deliver urgently needed infrastructure and economic support.
Richards secured a wide margin locally as the Liberal Party, under Mark Carney's leadership, appeared poised to form a minority government nationally, based on preliminary results as of Tuesday morning.
Brown and Aalhus spoke Monday while polls were still open. Their interviews were conducted before the results were known.
"Infrastructure," Brown said, when asked about Airdrie's biggest challenge. "Because of our growth, we need fire halls, wellness centres — I say centres, but there are three phases. The majority of our stuff is very expensive, so we need support with different grants and opportunities."
"It's definitely some of the bigger projects around wastewater and water that are extremely expensive," he said. "When you go underground for 10 kilometres and put in pretty large pipe, it's very, very expensive."
"When they come up with these solutions federally, they need to explain how that's going to work municipally," he said.
"There's a lot of money that goes to eastern Canada," Brown said. "I say that with bias... I've never seen that here in my time in 15 years."
"We did receive the HAF funding [Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF)]", which is really great, but obviously we're looking for more."
As of 09:56 a.m. ET Tuesday, preliminary Elections Canada results showed Richards secured 49,641 votes, or 71.3 per cent of the total. Liberal candidate Sean Secord received 16,459 votes (23.6 per cent), followed by NDP candidate Sarah Zagoda with 2,533 votes (3.6 per cent), Libertarian David Sabine with 615 votes (0.9 per cent), and Christian Heritage Party candidate Christopher Bell with 373 votes (0.5 per cent). Voter turnout in the riding was 73.92 per cent.
Nationally, preliminary results were released by Elections Canada at 11:16 a.m. ET showed the Liberals leading in 168 of 343 ridings, followed by the Conservatives in 144, the Bloc Québécois in 23, the New Democratic Party in 7, and the Green Party in 1. Final seat counts had not been confirmed, but the Liberals appeared on track to form a minority government.
"Affordability is number one, cost of housing, inflation, and immigration were issues," Brown said.
"They might have gone in a little bit too heavy because we didn't have the resources to support the people coming into our communities," he said.
"It really resonated with me when the [former] Prime Minister [Justin Trudeau] celebrated our 150th anniversary and named all the provinces, but Alberta..." he said. "I don't know if that was intentional... but it certainly didn't resonate well."
"I'm always so proud when I go anywhere near the oil patch to see the magnificent progress Suncor and other companies have made on the environment," he said. "They've changed things so dramatically when it comes to bringing oil to the surface, natural gas, whatever it might be — carbon capture, decades of improvement. And it's never talked about federally."
"Alberta is such an amazing place. We should be trumpeting the province that donates more every single year to Confederation than any other province in Canada, and we're marginalized," he said.
"We give them 25 billion and we get roughly two-thirds of that back. How is that fair and equitable?" he said. The figure could not be independently verified.
"Fastest growing municipality in Canada for the last probably over a decade," Brown said. "We have an amazing community, but we need more infrastructure. So opening up the purse strings to support municipalities like Airdrie would be extremely helpful, and it'd allow us to keep our taxes low and continue to grow our city responsibly."
Business leaders also said Ottawa must act swiftly to stabilize the economy and deliver on longstanding promises.
"The next federal government needs to hit the ground running, ready to pursue a mandate that will guarantee economic sovereignty and security," Marilyne Aalhus Executive Director of the Airdrie Regional Chamber of Commerce noted Monday afternoon. "We cannot be left vulnerable."
"We definitely come together as a nation in favour of business. That is our mandate," she said. "We want to serve business, and with that means a strong economy. If business are striving and providing, then typically, our economy is strong, and in turn, our residents benefit."
"There's some really important changes that need to take place for our businesses to do better — delivering on promises like free internet, internal trade," she said. "We talk about how difficult it is to do interprovincial trade... enough talk. Let's make it happen."
"Committing to long-term investment into this country, foreign investment, local investment — we need our government to step up," Aalhus said. "Hopefully something that will be a plan that will last for the ages, that [will] help us now, but also long into the future."
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