Federal Conservative MP Martin Shields was re-elected to represent the Bow River riding in Southern Alberta.

October 21 was election night, and Shields could be found in his home town of Brooks, at his election night gathering, with a room full of supporters, family and friends

In the lead up to the closing of the polls Shields said, “there’s excitement, as people start to gather watching the results. There’s a lot of excitement and anticipation of five weeks of a long campaign and a lot of people working.”

When it was confirmed he had won Bow River riding the crowd erupted into cheers.

Shields won 84.1 per cent of the vote with 45,691 votes.

He was followed by the Liberal candidate Margaret Rhemtulla with 3,104 votes, the NDP’s Lynn MacWilliam with 3, 010 votes, Tom Ikert of the People’s Party with 1, 302 votes, Green Party’s Hendrika Maria Tuithof de Jonge with 805 votes and Christian Heritage Party’s Tom Lip with 445 votes.

About 54,357 of 78,994 registered voters came out to vote.

Shields was asked in a media scrum what he plans to accomplish once he’s sworn in. “The most important thing to me is not one specific issue, but it’s to represent the constituents in the community,” he said.

In terms of the recent climate protests this month in Alberta, he spoke of challenges facing locals like farmers like getting some of Alberta’s resources like oil to market.

“We need to get that pipeline built, whether on a minority or majority, that pipeline needs to be built and we need to get our oil to market,” he said.

“We own it as taxpayers the current pipeline, and there has been a commitment through the approval process to build the next one. That needs to happen,” said Shields.