It wasn’t the result that Mark King wanted, but that hasn’t deterred the PPC candidate of this Federal Election.
“There was certainly a lot of hope,” King said. “I felt that the team did a tremendous job and I don’t believe that there was anything else we could have done. We put this together in a short period of time and we had a lot of support in the community. We actually had the most percentage of the popular vote across the country for the PPC aside from Max’s (Maxime Bernier PPC Leader) riding. It is what it is.”
King finished fifth out of five spots in the Nipissing-Timiskaming riding and he attributes some of that to the party being brand new.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that the fact that it is a brand new party only formed in the last year playing a big part of it. We tried really hard to get the policies out there and I thought they were excellent. When we went through the debate process, it was obvious to me that no one else was putting a solid policy out there that someone could gravitate towards.
“It’s that issue of mainstream parties that have tremendous resources across the country that made the difference.”
Election campaigns are no stranger to King as he has run and been voted to North Bay city council, but he says this is a different beast altogether.
“It is a major difference, no question about that. The resources you need are huge and the area alone is huge. That is one thing that I have learned through this process is that all these different regions have problems that are different to the regions next to them.
“Like looking at Mattawa with all the flooding, and lack of support. Then you talk to people in Powassan and you realize there is a tremendous agriculture opportunity there but no support.”
Now that the election is over though, King is looking forward to getting back to council.
“I have a few loose ends to clean up. I will be back at it tomorrow I would say.”
