Alberta Agriculture Minister George Groeneveld kept his seat by a wide margin in the Progressive Conservatives’ first election under Premier Ed Stelmach.
Stelmach, a former agriculture minister in the Ralph Klein government, led his party to capture 72 of 83 seats in Monday’s election, up from 60 when the election was called Feb. 4.
Groeneveld, whose Highwood constituency includes the community of High River, beat the Liberals’ Stan Shedd by a margin of over 6,000 votes.
Hugh MacDonald, the opposition Liberals’ agriculture critic and an MLA since 1997, held his Edmonton riding by a margin of just over 1,000 votes over PC candidate David Dorward. The party’s caucus was reduced from 16 seats to nine.
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Ray Martin, the New Democrats’ ag critic and former party leader (1984-93), lost his Edmonton riding to PC candidate Tony Vandermeer by a margin of just over 300 votes. The NDP becomes a two-member caucus, down from four.
The three main party leaders — Stelmach, the Liberals’ Kevin Taft and the NDP’s Brian Mason — all held their seats. The Wildrose Alliance Party, which had appeared poised to gain in this election, given reports of discontent on the right with the PCs’ policies under Stelmach, lost its lone seat.
