
'What just happened?' Former Bloc candidate explains how it feels to lose by 12 votes
CBC
Patrick O'Hara was driving home to Léry, Que., from Parliament Hill earlier this month when he got the call telling him that he wouldn't become a member of Parliament after all.
In the end, he came up 12 votes short.
"There's a feeling of ... what just happened? You're in awe and shock," O'Hara said.
Two weeks earlier, the rookie Bloc Québécois candidate in the riding of Châteauguay-Lacolle had every reason to believe a summer federal election had changed his life forever.
Feeling "ecstatic" and energized after having been declared the winner, he had started the process of hiring staff and "building the roadmap to taking over the riding."
The results had him unseating Liberal incumbent Brenda Shanahan by 286 votes in one of the tightest races in the country.
In a Facebook post two days after election day, Shanahan conceded defeat, congratulated O'Hara and tried to buck up supporters by reminding them that "life is good."

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