New West Progressives mayoral candidate looks at next moves

It was quite the race for New West's office of the mayor Saturday evening, with the difference between first and second place separated by just 1,449 votes. 

While mayor-elect Patrick Johnstone will succeed Jonathan Cote—who announced in January he wouldn’t be running for re-election—the New West Progressives’ (NWP) Ken Armstrong says he'll continue to rally around slate mates Daniel Fontaine, Paul Minhas, and Danielle Connelly. 

Fontaine and Minhas were elected to council, while Connelly is a school board incumbent.

“This wasn’t ever only about me, it was a team thing, and I'm thrilled for our two elected council candidates," Armstrong tells New West Anchor, adding that he's ready to provide whatever support they need to ensure NWP policies are heard at the table. 

"I'll be available as a sounding board, as an advocate in the public, whatever support they feel they need," Armstrong said, noting that seeing two people from his slate make it to council seemed to suggest it was indeed a race to watch. "We're really grateful for the support from all our volunteers, our donors, and those who chose to put their faith in us and in our plans for a better New West."

While Armstrong didn't make mayor, he calls Saturday night's results a step forward for the NWP. "We are going to build on it, we are going to come back in 2026 to fight another hotly contested election," he says. 

What did the mayoral vote look like in New West?

The latest population tally for New Westminster, based on the latest data from Statistics Canada, is at 78,916 people. 

According to the city's website, there were a total of 15,923 ballots cast. Taking a look at the votes for mayor—and based on the total of votes cast for Johnstone, Armstrong, and Puchmayr—there appear to be 108 votes not allocated to a mayoral candidate.

When looking at the larger picture of voter participation versus the actual number of people eligible to vote in New West, there are 58,361 people who could cast a vote for mayor. Presumably, based on data available to us, that would mean 27% of people eligible to vote voted for a mayoral candidate. Looking at the number of voters registered, of the 44,678, 35% of people seem to have had a vote count for mayor. 

As for voter turnout, just 27.2% of all eligible voters in New Westminster cast a ballot. 

What's next for all three mayoral candidates?

Prior to all 23 polls reporting Saturday evening, Chuck Puchmayr told New West Anchor he was conceding the race to Johnstone and that his next plans included a vacation somewhere close by. He will also continue to be active in the community, noting that he still had work do, including in his role of chair of the Lookout Society's board of directors. 

Mayor-elect Johnstone told The Anchor he'd be chatting with councillors as a team and individually before the inaugural meeting of the new council on Monday, Nov. 7—this is also the date when the group will be sworn in at City Hall.

Meantime, Armstrong says he's taking some personal days to recuperate after months of stumping and is looking forward to the future of his law practice. As for whether Armstrong plans to contest the mayoral election results? "We haven't even talked about contesting the results. It's 1,400 votes, nine points—I did the math, it's nine points, so, yeah."