There will be a familiar name as member of Parliament for the riding of Winnipeg South Centre, now that Ben Carr has prevailed for the Liberals in a byelection held June 19.
According to the preliminary results from Elections Canada, Carr received 55.5 percent of the votes with all of the polls reporting. The results have yet to be finalized by Elections Canada.
Carr is the son of Jim Carr, who formerly held that seat for seven years for the Liberal Party of Canada. The elder Carr died late last year.
In his victory speech late Monday night, Carr said: “To my dad, I miss him every day—his smile, his voice, his energy, and his optimism. I feel the void of his loss profoundly.
“Over the last few weeks in particular it has been painful to be without his support and guidance, and to not have had the opportunity to tell him through countless stories I’ve heard just how much he was loved in this community.”
In a telephone interview from the airport, on his way to Ottawa for his first Liberal Party caucus meeting on June 21, Carr, 36, said the first thing he will do when he gets there is let his victory sink in.
“I’ll spend time with friends to celebrate and reflect on the past few weeks,” he said, adding his first day in Ottawa will also find him filling out paperwork and getting ready for his role as a new MP.
Later, he looks forward to learning what committees he might be asked to be part of, and ways he can contribute to public policy in the country.
He will take with him the concerns he heard from constituents while door knocking in the ttime leading up to the election—things like rising costs, healthcare and a changing climate.
“You can feel it and smell it in Winnipeg this year,” Carr said of the hot weather impacting the province and wildfire smoke drifting over from Alberta.
At the same time, the “overwhelming” message he got from constituents was “the country is moving in the right direction,” he said. “They believe progress is being made.”
People he met also spoke positively about his father.
“I miss him dearly,” Carr said. “Sunday was my first Father’s Day without him. There are countless moments when I wish I could pick up the phone and get his advice. His voice is in my head every day.”
He will take his father’s spirit with him to Ottawa as well. “I’m committed to embodying the values he imbued in me, things like being kind, open-minded and serving as a member of Parliament with integrity,” he said.
Before the election, Carr was the vice-president of a consulting firm called Indigenous Strategy Alliance. He has also worked as a high school teacher, coach, and principal, and as a former federal Liberal government staffer.
He told The CJN earlier this year his desire to serve as an MP grew partly out of his Jewish upbringing—the idea of being a positive force in the world.
“I have a commitment to the community where I grew up, played and worked,” he said. Representing Winnipeg South Centre “is another way I can make that contribution.”
Carr was selected as the winner from 48 candidates listed on ballot—the largest number of candidates in Canadian election history. Forty-two of them were part of a coordinated effort from the Longest Ballot Committee to protest the first-past-the-post voting system.
The committee mobilized candidates from across the country to stand in the riding as a way to highlight their demand for changes to the way Canadians vote.