The Burnaby Citizens Association nailed down another full sweep, with candidates snagging every last council and school board seat for the third time in a row.
While it may be remarkable, Corrigan, now in his fifth term, was not surprised.
"I feel absolutely great, I feel elated. This is probably the toughest one for us to come back and repeat it a third time. I just feel so privileged the people of Burnaby trust us and respect us," he told the NOW, from BCA headquarters at the Firefighters Banquet Hall near Metrotown. "I don't think it's happened before, and I don't know that it could ever happen again. It's something that's unique in our city."
The evening started with a bagpipe procession bringing in the BCA's council and school board candidates to a crowd of roughly 200 supporters. Corrigan and his wife Kathy, MLA for Burnaby-Deer Lake, were also brought in with pipers shortly after.
The final election results show Corrigan re-elected as mayor with 28,113 votes, or 68.9 per cent of the ballots cast.
BCA incumbent Pietro Calendino was the top councillor, with 23,373 votes, followed by Dan Johnston (23,267), Anne Kang (22,164), Colleen Jordan (22,158), Paul McDonell (21,303), Sav Dhaliwal (21,082), Nick Volkow (19,700) and James Wang (19,490).
BCA school trustee candidates also held all the school board seats.
Longtime trustee Ron Burton garnered the most votes at 24,189, followed by Larry Hayes (23,249), newcomer Katrina Chen (23,116), Gary Wong (21,743), Baljinder Narang (18,854), Meiling Chia (18,552) and Harman Pandher (18,345).
The only changes from the previous BCA lineup are that Wang has moved from school board to council, while Chen is new to the school board.
Corrigan said the opposition didn't seem well organized or focused in their approach to the issues.
"They didn't seem to have much of a message of doing anything differently than what we were doing. Mostly they just criticized us, and I don't believe that's an effective campaign. Our campaign was very positive," Corrigan said.
However, Daren Hancott made a strong run for mayor, securing 21.7 per cent of the vote, but those 8,848 ballots weren't enough to unseat Corrigan.
Likewise, the BFC's council candidates fell short of winning a single seat. Helen Ward came closest with 14,680 votes (5.4 per cent), but was still 4,810 votes away from tying with trustee-turned-councillor Wang.
"I'm disappointed we don't have an official opposition in seats," admitted Hancott, though he was impressed by the increased voter turnout, with more than 41,000 residents casting their ballots. The 2011 election only saw 32,953 eligible voters show up at the polls.
"On two fronts, I think we won something. The democratic deficit got narrowed - I think the voter turnout was pretty good, and I think that galvanized a bunch of new voters. And I'm pleased at the showing of some of our candidates," Hancott said.
Behind Ward, Hancott's wife Linda won 5.1 per cent of the vote, followed by Jason Chan (4.7 per cent), Matthew Hartney (4.4 per cent), Ray Power (4.2 per cent), Nick Kvenich (3.9 per cent), Charter Lau (3.7 per cent) and Shakila Jeyachandran (2.9 per cent).
Hancott noted the challenges of putting together such a diverse group and developing policies as a unit, but based on the overall votes for Burnaby First and the coalition's budget of roughly $25,000, he said they proved they can do more with less.
"It was true democracy at work," he said.
While unsure that he will be leading the BFC charge in four years, Hancott told his supporters that Burnaby First will look ahead to 2018, noting that "each city deserves a choice" of strong municipal parties.
"We're not going anywhere," he said in a speech. "We're going to be stronger next time, and we're going to hold those feet to the fire."
Burnaby's independent mayoral and council candidates did not fare quite as well: Helen Chang received 1,845 votes (4.5 per cent) while Allen Hutton had 974 (2.4 per cent). Raj Gupta was marked down on 680 ballots (1.7 per cent) and Sylvia Gung got 372 votes (0.9 per cent).
For council candidates, Tom Tao, who ran for mayor in 2011 under TEAM Burnaby, received 3,959 votes (1.4 per cent). Jeff Kuah, who ran for school board under TEAM Burnaby last time around, received 3,107 (1.1 per cent).
