Mission-Matsqui-Abbotsford will stay blue.
Incumbent Conservative Party of Canada candidate Brad Vis claimed the new-look riding on Monday (April 28), winning the seat for the third consecutive federal election.
Vis earned the victory with roughly 57 per cent of the vote ahead of Liberal Jeff Howe, New Democrat Jules Côté, PPC candidate Kevin Sinclair and Green John Kidder.
With all 230 polls reporting, Vis finished with 33,650 votes. Howe secured second place with 21,715 votes (36.5 per cent), followed by Côté with 2,728 (4.6 per cent), Kidder with 820 (1.4 per cent) and Sinclair with 501 (0.8 per cent).
The riding had an approximate 70 per cent turnout with 59,413 of 84,536 registered voters casting a ballot in the election. An estimated 23,907 voted in advance.
The incumbent Vis will now head to Ottawa as the opposition for the third time after he was first elected in 2019 and again in 2021. The Matsqui product has served in different shadow cabinet roles, most recently as the shadow minister for Small Business Recovery and Growth.
Vis told the Mission Record he was humbled by the overwhelming support and thanked his campaign team. However, he also voiced disappointment with the nationwide results.
“I felt, obviously, back in January, the polls for the Conservatives were very different. So when the campaign started, I noticed a shift in the electorate – almost before it showed up in the national polls. And I realized at that time that it was going to be a bit of a different election. It obviously didn't impact me here, but I'm devastated we are not forming government right now,” Vis said.
He expects an interesting dynamic in Ottawa and “jockeying for position” on how parliament will function.
“Make no mistake, we need a parliament to function right now because we are still facing threats from the United States. Here locally, we're still dealing with flood infrastructure issues, and we're still dealing with a fentanyl crisis in British Columbia. All of those things aren't going away. We still need to deal with them and I've got a lot of work to do for my constituents,” Vis said.
He went on to say: “In every minority Parliament, you have to work with other parties and and I'm and I'm gonna do that.”
During a victory speech at his campaign headquarters, he said the Conservative Party is going to be going through a bit of a transition.
“But I'm not going to relent on the things I heard in this campaign and that is: people want me focused on affordability, people want me focused on safe streets, and people want a me focused on the flood infrastructure that Abbotsford needs. This is a very diverse community, and I'm so blessed to represent such a plethora of different cultures in Ottawa,” he said.
Vis, whose wife is from the Filipino community, also took time to acknowledge the lives lost in Vancouver's Lapu Lapu Festival tragedy.
Meanwhile, Howe told the crowd at a gathering on Monday (April 28) that "the battle has been lost, but the war has not”.
“Our campaign started late, as you know, but once we got going, we got going. I’m really proud of our campaign, I’m really proud of our team. We were a small but mighty force,” Howe said.
He called the riding a battleground that is “traditionally known as a Conservative fortress.”
“I’ve been a politician for four weeks now,” he said. “We will be back, in some way, shape, or form and I hope to see you all there too.”
Côté said she was disappointed in the NDP result but felt good that the Liberals formed government instead of the Conservatives.
“I didn't have too many expectations going into it. I still feel pretty good about the number of doors that we were able to knock on and how much we were able to get done, even if we knew going into it that a lot of folks were going to be really scared about the trade war and the tariffs and that … a lot of progressives were, going to potentially vote Liberal,” Côté said.
Côté is unsure if she’ll run for political office in the future. Her current plans are to keep working in the Fraser Valley and finish her degree at UFV.
For a left-leaning party to win in the riding in the future, Côté expects it will require a candidate who provides people in the riding with hope.
“I think that's one thing that Brad does very well … he really speaks to Mission-Matsqui-Abbotsford’s interests and I think that we need a progressive that can stand up and speak to that as well as Brad has done over the years.”
The electoral boundaries for the Mission-Matsqui-Abbotsford riding changed from 2021, losing a portion of Mission in the redistribution process.
The new-look riding contains the bulk of Mission east of Wren Street and north of Richards Avenue, along with FVRD Electoral Area G and a portion of Area F. The riding also contains Harrison Hot Springs, Electoral Area C, Matsqui, parts of Abbotsford and the District of Kent.
