VANCOUVER - A recount has been ordered in a Vancouver riding narrowly won by Liberal Ujjal Dosanjh in Tuesday's election.
Elections Canada says a judicial recount is automatic in races where there is a small margin between victor and loser.
In Vancouver South, Dosanjh has just a 33 vote lead over Conservative Wai Young. Dosanjh had 16,101 votes to Young's 16,068, with 259 ballots rejected.
The Conservatives won 143 seats and the Liberals were reduced to 76; the NDP were elected in 37 ridings and two Independent candidates also won, while the Bloc Quebecois took 50 seats.
"I can confirm that they have advised me there will be a recount," Dosanjh said Thursday.
He declined to comment any further on the closeness of the vote but let loose in his election night speech and in interviews the day after.
Dosajh blamed NDP Leader Jack Layton for splitting the left-of-centre vote and giving Canadians another Conservative government.
The Liberals, he said, obviously bled votes to the Greens and NDP to no purpose.
"(The) NDP's irrelevant insofar as the federal scene is concerned except insofar as they have the ability by splitting the vote to effectively elect a Conservative government, which they've done twice," he said Wednesday.
He criticized Layton's "pretension to the throne," campaigning as if he could become prime minister when the NDP "didn't have that kind of support."
"If you say you're applying for the job of prime minister and you gain less than one point nationally in the polls, what does that say? Everyone recognizes that was simply a delusional Jack Layton".
Dosanjh also said he did not know what were the plans of Liberal Leader Stephane Dion.
"I don't know what Mr. Dion's plans are. He's said he's staying and I take him at face value if that's the case. There is a review coming up in May and that would be the opportunity for the party to deal with this issue."
Dosanjh is a former NDP premier in B.C. and served as a health minister in the last federal Liberal government.
Young said she was notified Thursday of the recount -- and she was pleased.
"From day one of the election, I told voters in Vancouver South that every vote counts -- so I will be waiting, along with each person who voted in Vancouver South -- to see what the judicial recount will reveal," she said in a statement.
