SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - During his concession speech Monday night, Liberal candidate Joe Handley, who came in third behind Dennis Bevington of the NDP and Sandy Lee of the Conservatives, asked his supporters what Canadians were thinking.

"If you can figure out what happened nationally, then you better come and tell me because I can't figure out what has happened nationally, but we got swept along," he said.

Handley, the former premier of the NWT, tallied 18.4 per cent of the votes in the Western Arctic riding and watched his party tank, losing 43 seats, including Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff's in Etobicoke-Lakeshore.

The Liberal Party took 18.9 of the vote nationally – its worst showing since Confederation. The party is left with 34 seats, primarily in Eastern Canada.

"People wanted change and it was change that wasn't necessarily in our direction," said Handley to about 40 of his supporters at the Top Knight Pub.

Although it was a disappointing loss, Handley said he wouldn't have changed the way he ran his campaign.

"We ran a good, clean, ethical, fair campaign," he said. "We didn't try to smear anybody. We talked about what we would do, not about what somebody else didn't do. We kept it positive.

"The results clearly aren't what we expected, aren't what we wanted, aren't what we fought for, but we did our best. I think we should take a lot of pride in that," he said, adding that having a Conservative majority government with a NDP opposition will create opportunities to rebuild the Liberal Party.

Robert Hawkins, MLA for Yellowknife Centre, joined Handley at the pub.

He said he was more disappointed than surprised by the results.

"I think Joe's leadership skills would have shone through," he said. "But unfortunately as you can see across the country, not just this room, that orange wave took over and it is what it is."

Handley said despite the results, this isn't the end of his political career.

"I like politics," he said. "I believe in people and a lot of things that we talk about, things like families and jobs and education and the economy. I feel too strongly about it to fold up everything and go away."

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