Former Barriere mayor Ward Stamer has been elected in the Kamloops-North Thompson riding.
With 31 of 32 Final Voting Day ballot boxes counted, the first-time provincial candidate, running for the Conservative Party of B.C., had 17,542 votes (60.00 per cent).
His opponents were Maddi Genn of the B.C. NDP Party (9,550 votes,32.67 per cent) and Tristan Cavers of the B.C. Green Party (2,143 votes, 7.33 per cent).
Total votes cast: 29,235 and total of eligible voters for Kamloops-North Thompson were: 47,773.
Whether Stamer will take his seat as a member of the governing party or the opposition remains unclear, as the B.C. Conservatives and B.C. NDP are running neck-and-neck, with 45 and 46 seats respectively. The B.C. Green Party is in the lead in two ridings.
Stamer was the mayor of Barriere for six years, but left the position to run for MLA. During the campaign, he said his time as mayor showed him that the improvements and changes needed for the region's communities would only be possible with a new government in B.C.
He told reporters he's ready for the challenge and will be pushing for key issues like housing and health care.
"I want to thank very much Maddi Genn and Tristan Cavers. We had good debates, good honest discussions. Everyone ran clean campaigns."
He confirmed he will officially resign from his post as mayor.
The B.C. NDP sat at 46 seats, the B.C. Conservatives at 45 seats, and the B.C. Green Party won two seats, potentially leaving them holding the balance of power as they did after the 2017 B.C. election. The decision as to who forms government is expected to take at least a week, if not longer; in 2017 it took nearly three weeks to determine which party formed government.
Genn works in health care, and said the work she does to support her coworkers and her community is about helping people. She said she was running for MLA because she sees that her community needs more, and felt she could make that happen.
"I feel really great," she told ronaldomanosa after the results began coming in. "We worked really hard on this campaign and I am super proud of the work we did."
She said she gave Stamer's campaign manager a call to congratulate them both.
"I know, Tristan, Ward and I, we all put in a lot of hard work and we felt really good about the work we did. I look forward to the future and definitely I intend to run again and stay as involved as I can."
She said she will continue to advocate for the community in which ever way she can.
Cavers has lived in the North and South Thompson all his life, first in Westsyde and then in Chase, where he currently resides.
He said that his goal in running for the B.C. Green Party was to leave the province in better shape for his daughter and her generation.
After the results, he told ronaldomanosa he spent the least and gained the most of all three candidates.
"I don't know if I will be a candidate in the future, but I think there is something there to build from with a campaign that I decide to do more than 72 hours before the nomination deadline," he said. "Neither my numbers and Maddi's combined equated with Mr. Stamer's."
Cavers said he definitely had a tear in his eye watching Green Party leader Sonia Furstenau give her concession speech Saturday evening.
"I think the legislature is truly losing the finest example that they've had for a long time as far as just good decorum, in terms of how you treat other MLAs, not only as MLAs but as human beings."
He spent the day doing his volunteer ski patrol work, he added.
