Conservatives ‘on the rise,’ Pasloski says

Election night was bittersweet for Conservative candidate Darrell Pasloski. He watched his party gain 19 seats nationwide, while on the receiving end of a sound thumping from Liberal incumbent Larry Bagnell.

Election night was bittersweet for Conservative candidate Darrell Pasloski. He watched his party gain 19 seats nationwide, while on the receiving end of a sound thumping from Liberal incumbent Larry Bagnell.

“It’s difficult to beat an incumbent of eight years,” Pasloski said after poll results were in.

“That’s a big hill to climb (but) I play to win and we worked really hard .... I know I did the best that I could.”

That best was coming 1,810 votes shy of victory.

Though Pasloski’s supporters will not have their man in Ottawa, they can take solace in the fact he increased the Conservatives’ Yukon vote share almost 10 per cent from 2006, putting the party on better footing to challenge the Liberals next time.

In 2006, the Conservatives placed a close third behind the NDP; however, Bagnell’s 6,847 vote tally then was more than the NDP and Conservatives combined.

Last evening, Bagnell won with 6,567 votes and Pasloski’s 4,758 narrowed Bagnell’s margin of victory, from more than 3,480 in 2006, to fewer than 2,000 this time.

The NDP’s Ken Bolton was a distant fourth, earning only 1,309 votes, just nine per cent of the popular vote, down from the NDP’s 23.7 per cent (3,366 votes) in 2006.

Next to the Liberal-Conservative showdown, a battle that remained relatively close through initial poll results, the third-place finish of the Green Party’s John Streicker (1,880 votes) was an impressive threefold increase in the Greens’ popular vote share compared to 2006.

But the big story, or what failed to become the big story of the evening, was Pasloski’s unsuccessful attempt to unseat the incumbent. The rookie politician took it in stride, however, and attempted to put a positive spin on his defeat.

“It’s truly been a great experience and I think I’ve learned a lot,” Pasloski said to supporters gathered at the Gold Rush Inn last night. “What I can say is that the Conservative Party is on the rise in the Yukon.”

Whether Pasloski will carry what he learned into another contest remains to be seen.

While Pasloski did not commit to running again under the Conservative banner, he hinted there could be more political mojo in the tank.

“In the upcoming days and weeks, (my team and I) will look at where I was strong and what I could’ve done better,” said Pasloski.

If Pasloski’s effort was judged solely on campaign spending, there was little room for improvement.

Campaign spokesman Warren Holland told the Star Pasloski’s challenge cost upwards of $80,000, close to the allowable limit for the Yukon riding.

From the perspective of Pasloski’s family, it was an enlightening but draining experience.

“I’m really proud of my dad,” said daughter Bronwyn Pasloski, who was on hand at the Conservative reception.

“It was really neat to see him (in the race) and I think he did really good… it was also a good experience for me, and I learned a lot.”

Pasloski’s wife, Tammie, a business partner in the pair’s Whitehorse Shoppers Drug Mart ventures and an integral member of the campaign team, was also proud, but like her husband, unwilling to commit to another challenge so soon.

“It’s pretty early to say,” she said in the aftermath. “I’d like to get some time off because it’s been really pretty intense.”

“It’s been five weeks, and that’s been very hard ... and the days have been a bit full so I’m looking forward to getting back to normalcy,” she added.

As Pasloski made his final address to the local media, he appeared to be returning to the Pasloski-the-pharmacist persona.

“I’ll have to work on that,” Pasloski said in response to a journalist’s observation that he appeared more relaxed compared to the debates he took part in.

“What I’ve always done my whole life is help people ... this (political) part is more difficult, but I’ll always be the pharmacist; it’s just part of what I’ve always done.”

Throughout the campaign, Pasloski faced criticism, first from the media, which complained he offered little time for questioning. Then the public weighed in negatively after Pasloski failed to attend an all-candidates’ forum in Dawson City.

At a forum on art and culture in Whitehorse that Pasloski did attend, his three rivals used the Conservative government’s slashing of $40 million in relevant culture funding as a stick with which to beat Pasloski mercilessly.

When he attempted to turn the tides in subsequent debates by attacking Bagnell and the Liberal Party’s record, he was criticized for evading questions and, as time wore on, proved little match for the incumbent’s battle-tested debate savvy.

“It wasn’t about fighting Bagnell,” Pasloski insisted, still lauding the merits of the Conservatives, even in the wake of his own defeat.

“It was more about (the Conservative record of) paying down the debt, focusing on jobs and dealing with things they said they were going to do.”

But as the polls showed, it was always a contest between Bagnell and Pasloski, and there remains an appetite for Conservative ideology in the territory.

Having held the Yukon seat longer than any other party in the riding’s history, the territory’s Conservatives have been shut out of Ottawa for more than two decades, after the late Erik Neilsen resigned his seat in early 1987.