Monday’s federal election has left Conservative Member of Parliament Rob Merrifield headed for Ottawa and the government benches in the House of Commons, but two of his vanquished foes say they are already eager to take up their political swords whenever the next vote is called.

Merrifield trounced the representatives from four other parties, capturing the Yellowhead riding with 71.2 per cent of the popular vote, according to preliminary results.

“Those large numbers are humbling,” he said. During the course of the campaign, Merrifield had intimated that his goal was to earn more than 70 per cent support in Yellowhead. “It feels great — it’s a tribute to the team,” he said, speaking of the contributions from his campaign volunteers. “We have had three elections in five years which means we have a well-oiled team that’s very good at this.”

The Conservative Party had been considered by some to be on the way to a majority of the seats in the new Parliament, but will instead form a minority government with 124 members in caucus. Merrifield rubbished rumours that his supporters in Whitecourt had spent a sombre evening as the results rolled in.

“We were always going to be in that 120-130 seat range ... or up around 160 if the Liberal vote collapsed and it just didn’t totally collapse,” he said. “We aren’t disappointed at all — whether it’s a minority or not, you still depend on the support of other parties to put legislation through the House.”

Merrifield was disappointed, however, after he was named by Paul Martin as a Conservative MP that had been silenced by his own party. Martin made the comments during a speech in Newfoundland in the final days of the campaign.

“That was just a desperate man doing desperate things,” Merrifield said. “Never once did head office or the war room give me any direction to not engage the media. There were a couple of media calls that I chose not to do because they were set-up jobs, but that was my own choice. I was set up in 2004 and now ... you can smell those things coming a mile away.”

During the last federal campaign, Merrifield called for the introduction of third-party counselling for women considering abortions. The comments, made while Merrifield was the Conservatives’ health critic, led to an outraged response from pro-abortion groups and forced party leader Stephen Harper to make a statement that suggested Merrifield’s views were not shared by the party.

Merrifield claimed that he and other members of the Conservative caucus did not receive media training by the party besides a weekend session held early in 2005. Instead, he credited his party’s relatively smooth campaign this time around to a greater “maturity” among the candidates.

Monika Schaefer, the Jasperite who finished the night having captured some 6.6 per cent of the vote for the Green Party, believes Merrifield is just doing a better job of avoiding scrutiny.

“His real agenda is quite extreme,” she alleged. “He tells people what he thinks they want to hear.

“He’s the ultimate stereotype of the politician who sidesteps the question.”

In terms of her own performance, Schaefer admitted to being disappointed that she did not earn a greater share of the vote.

“I’m not totally thrilled,” she said. “I would have liked to have increased our share some more.” In 2004, Green candidate Eric Stieglitz earned 6.56 per cent of the ballots cast.

Schaefer did, however, perform well within Jasper itself according to unofficial numbers provided to the Fitzhugh by a party scrutineer. The Green candidate won 26 per cent of the vote in her hometown, a figure that was good enough for second behind Merrifield, who received one-third of Jasper’s votes. NDP candidate Noel Lapierre was a mere percentage point in arrears of Schaefer, while Liberal Nancy Love won 16 per cent support. Eleven Jasperites voted for John Weirenga of the Christian Heritage Party.

Liberal Nancy Love was disheartened by her own performance in the riding (she won 9.4 per cent across Yellowhead) but pleased to see that her party was still able to maintain more than 100 seats in the House.

“I was hoping that we would do better. There was a lot of protest-vote out there to make the Liberals understand that people weren’t happy with what went on and I think that message was received.”

Love said she was surprised that Paul Martin decided to announce his resignation on election night, and threw her support behind Frank McKenna, should the former premier of New Brunswick choose to pursue the now-vacant leadership.

“If he decided to run he’d do a very good job,” she said.

Lapierre,meanwhile, seemed frustrated with the fact that he had not earned more than 11 per cent support, the same figure as the last election.

“People don’t want to study the issues and understand what’s happening,” he said. “We’ve been Tories in this riding for more than 50 years.”

Lapierre was non-committal about the prospect of his returning to carry the NDP banner in a future election, but Love and Schaefer were not reluctant to indicate their interest.

Love also went against what seemed to be a fairly universal sentiment, predicting another election was in the offing.

“I think politics for the next little while will be very entertaining because there is no clear coalition that the Conservatives can form,” she added.

Merrifield acknowledged that it would be a difficult task,  but said his party would be able to achieve many of their key policies as outlined over the course of the campaign.

“We think that we’ll be able to deliver on those five priorities,” he said, referring to the federal accountability act, a wait-times guarantee, a reduction in the GST, the provision of a national child care benefit and the commitment to stiffen sentencing in Canada’s justice system.

“I don’t think there is going to be any appetite for any election soon,” he said.