Prince George, BC –  “This was obviously an election about change and a full rejection of the Conservative approach.”

That from Skeena-Bulkley Valley New Democrat MP-elect, Nathan Cullen, who won resounding approval from his constituents to earn his fifth term in the House of Commons, despite his party’s disastrous fall from Official Opposition to third party status.

Cullen says tonight is definitely bittersweet.  “While very disappointed that we weren’t able to form the government as we’d hoped to just a number of weeks ago, (I’m) encouraged that Mr. Harper’s platform was rejected and a much more progressive one was picked up.”

But it may have been progressive ‘parallels’ that proved to be the New Democrats’ downfall.  Cullen feels there may not have been enough of a distinction between the New Democrats and Liberals on the big issues, like deficits.  “We were not able to outshine them in the broad narrative, in the conversation of the campaign,” he says.  “But I take some comfort in the fact that, if anything, we were criticized for being too centric in our fiscal policy – it’s an interesting criticism to make of the NDP, is that we were too careful with the books or we were too careful with not running deficits, that has been the central criticism.”

The MP-elect says he won’t dwell on losing Official Opposition status.  “We were effective when we were 19 (MPs).  We know how to scramble and fight for every bit of attention,” says Cullen.  “We have a long record of doing it.  We’re going to have to get back to basics.”

He also won’t dwell on what comes next for the party.  Cullen gave leader Thomas Mulcair a run for his money in the 2012 leadership election, but says there’s so much dust to settle right now.  He says the ‘conversation’ within the NDP will take months to happen.  “That is natural and good, there is some reflection.  For me, personally, though, I don’t expect to spend a lot of time on that reflective phase.  I’ve got a lot of work to do – there’s a lot of things that we need to do for the northwest and spending too much time navel-gazing is not on my agenda.”

What is on his agenda is holding the Liberals’ feet to the fire on their campaign promises – rejecting the Northern Gateway pipeline, calling an inquiry into murdered and missing Aboriginal women, clean energy investments.  “These are the kinds of things that we fought for, these are some of the things that the Liberal party has adopted, now they have to (see) them through.”