Parsons retains his seat for Liberals

There weren't many bright spots for the Liberal party on Tuesday night, but the Burgeo-La Poile district was one of them.

Incumbent Liberal Kelvin Parsons took 2,882 of the votes to emerge with a fairly decisive win, one of only three Liberal wins in the whole province.

Progressive Conservative Colin Short trailed with 1,864 votes, while New Democratic Party's June Hiscock finished with 85 votes.

"I thought we had a great team and we always had a good team since 1999 when I first got involved and they came through again today," Parsons told The Western Star following the final tally.

"We were up against sort of the blue wave, given the premier's popularity. That was evident here as well to a certain extent, but obviously the people weren't fooled by it."

Parsons admits, however, the Liberal party has its work cut out for it to recover from the crushing province-wide results.

"We're going to have to do a major revitalization with the Liberal party in this province," he said. "We still have to be an effective opposition - the province needs an opposition - and we need to make sure we do the job. It's a lot more work for those of us who are there, because instead of being a critic for one or two departments, we have to be the eyes and ears and critics for all departments now. It's going to be a tough job, but that's why we're in this. We're not going to back away from hard work."

He said the campaign was a clean one, which he expected given his history with his PC opponent, Short, especially.

"I've been friends with his family and he with mine for most of our lives actually, and we both come from the same town," said Parsons.

"It was a clean campaign throughout - Colin is and was always a gentleman."