Conservative Robert Sopuck re-elected in Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa
CBC News | Posted: October 20, 2015 2:26 AM | Last Updated: October 20, 2015
CBC declares Conservative candidate Robert Sopuck has held onto the Manitoba riding Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa. With all 267 polls counted, Sopuck won with 46.4 per cent of the vote.
When asked for his reaction to the Liberal majority Sopuck said he remains proud of the Conservative's legacy in Ottawa.
"To govern is to choose. And we made some tough decisions for the country," he said. "We balanced the budget, there's a small surplus - those are good things for the country, but there are vested interests that oppose what we did, and that's obviously their right to do so."
Trailing Sopuck in Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa is Liberal Ray Piché with 29 per cent of the vote, behind him NDP candidate Laverne Lewycky with 12 per cent.
In the last election, Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette, elected Sopuck with 63 per cent support. Runner-up Cheryl Osborne of the NDP had 26 per cent of the vote.
As MP, Sopuck has chaired the Canada-Ukraine parliamentary friendship group, a non-partisan group that advocates for positive relations between Canada and Ukraine. He also chaired the Conservative hunting and angling caucus also served as a member of the standing committee for environment and sustainable development and the standing committee for fisheries and oceans.
Sopuck was first elected in a byelection in 2010. He and his wife, Caroline, live on 480 acres of farmland in the Sandy Lake area.
Liberal candidate Ray Piché is a retired member of the RCMP. NDP candidate Laverne M. Lewycky is a former MP for the area. He represented Dauphin-Swan River from 1980-84. Since then he has worked as an educator as an ordained minister.
Independent candidate Inky Mark is a political veteran. A former mayor of Dauphin, Mark held the title of Manitoba's longest-serving Conservative member of Parliament when he stepped down in 2010, after serving as an MP for 12 years. He has since rejected affiliation with the party and is presently an outspoken critic of Stephen Harper.
The electoral boundaries of Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa were redrawn in 2012 to include parts of Brandon-Souris and Portage-Lisgar. The majority of residents identify as Christian (73 per cent), and 4.9 per cent of residents speak an aboriginal language.
Voters had five candidates to chose from in the 2015 federal election:
- Laverne M. Lewycky, New Democratic Party;
- Inky Mark, independent;
- Ray Piché, Liberal Party of Canada;
- Robert Sopuck, Conservative Party of Canada; and
- Kate Storey, Green Party of Canada.