Conservative Party candidate Laila Goodridge was projected to be elected in the federal riding of Fort McMurray-Cold Lake on Monday night.
Shawn McDonald of the People’s Party of Canada had the second-most votes in the riding as of 9:41 p.m., however, he still trailed Goodridge by 5,601 votes with 70 out of 230 polls reporting.
READ MORE: Real-time results in the federal election
The Fort McMurray-Cold Lake riding covers the province’s northeast and includes the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo/Fort McMurray, the city of Cold Lake and Lac La Biche County. It also contains CFB Cold Lake and most of the Athabasca oil sands area.
The Conservative Party’s David Yurdiga won the riding in 2019 by a majority, collecting almost 80 per cent of the vote, however, he did not seek re-election in 2021.
The Tory candidate has represented the area since 2015. This region has voted to the right of the political spectrum since at least 1968.
Fort McMurray–Cold Lake is home to 110,230 residents and 79,222 registered voters. Immigrants make up close to 16.5 per cent of this riding’s population. Popular countries of origin include Pakistan, the Philippines and India.
According to Statistics Canada, mining and oil and gas operations, as well as construction, employed the highest number of people as of 2016.
Candidates:
Conservatives: Laila Goodridge
Liberal: Abdifatah Abdi
NDP: Garnett Robinson
People’s Party: Shawn McDonald
Green: Brian Deheer
Maverick: Jonathan Meyers