Conservative candidate Bob Zimmer wins seat in Parliament

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. – The Prince George-Peace River-Northern Rockies seat in the House of Commons will be filled once again by Conservative candidate Bob Zimmer.

“I guess in terms of numbers overall nationally, it wasn’t much different than when we went into this a month and a half ago,” said Zimmer on Monday night. “I think a lot of voters are going to be asking, ‘what was that for?’ $640 million for something we’re basically at the same place.”

Zimmer says “the message didn’t resonate as much as we’d hoped in urban Canada.”

“In rural Canada, we’re still very strong, but we need to connect to those voters. I think that’s something that we’ll be talking about as a caucus in the coming weeks, and we’ll figure out a strategy on what we need to do next.”

Of the 46,632 votes calculated, Zimmer won his seat with 28,338 votes or 60.8 per cent. Coming in second to Zimmer was Cory ‘Grizz’ Longley with 6,298 votes or 13.5 per cent.

Preliminary Results

The voter turnout in the region was 58.32 per cent of the 79,952 registered electors.

Nearly a million mail-in ballots were set to be counted Tuesday.

Zimmer will serve a fourth term in Parliament after replacing the previous Conservative MP, Jay Hill, who retired from politics in 2011.

The riding has been held by some form of a Conservative Party since 1972. From 1968 to 1972, the riding was held by Liberal MP Robert Borrie. From 1972 to 1993, Frank Oberle Sr. of the Progressive Conservative Party held the seat.

In the 2019 election, Zimmer and the Conservatives took the overwhelming share of the ballots with just under 70 per cent of the 55,412 votes. The Liberal candidate, Mavis Erickson, had 11.6 per cent of the vote.