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A retired Alberta MLA who crossed the floor from the Wildrose to the Progressive Conservative party last year has won $1 million dollars in the lottery.

Bruce and Carol Rowe won the prize after buying a $5 Quick Pick ticket at a booth in Market Mall Calgary.

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“You can’t imagine it,” said Bruce Rowe. “It was a pretty good feeling.”

“I think I went straight into shock,” Carol Rowe said Friday when she and her husband picked up the cheque at the lottery corporation’s headquarters in St. Albert.

“I just kept on saying, ’Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh! That’s all I could think of to say. Then I called my husband — he couldn’t believe it either.”

Bruce Rowe said the couple used to have a ’65 Corvette, but they sold it to pay off their mortgage.

He said he’s planning on helping his grandchildren out with his education as well.

“It just took some of the worries about the economy and everything away for sure,” he said.

Rowe, 72, is the former mayor of Beiseker who was elected as the Wildrose MLA for Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills in 2012. Last December, he was one of seven Wildrose MLAs who crossed the floor to the PCs.

Rowe did not seek re-election in last month’s vote and the riding returned to the Wildrose after candidate Nathan Cooper won.

With files from the Canadian Press