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The eyes of the entire country were on independent MP Chuck Cadman during Thursday evening's vote on the federal budget amendment, and he delivered by keeping up the suspense to the very end.

Mr. Cadman ended the anticipation by standing up and voting in favour of both the budget, and an NDP amendment to the budget in the House of Commons -- thus saving the Liberal minority government from defeat.

The Surrey MP had kept his cards close to his chest for weeks before the budget vote, but he always maintained that he wanted to be true to his own constituents whom he represents.

On Thursday night, he kept that promise.

Mr. Cadman told reporters in an interview that "It all came back to my constituents."

He said two-thirds of his constituents indicated to him in polls in his riding and informally, that they were not in favour of a spring election, so he voted in favour of the NDP amendment thus ensuring the passage of the bill and no likely snap election.

But he did not make a final choice until 30 minutes before the vote, he said.

He said it contained elements that would benefit many of those in Surrey.

Mr. Cadman was an MP who for two terms as an MP representing the Reform and Alliance parties. He had planned to run for the Conservatives in last year's election, but lost the nomination to an opponent who parachuted into his riding and signed up many new members. The people of Surrey North would have the final say, however, and overwhelmingly returned Mr. Cadman to Ottawa as an independent.

He said while he has always had roots in the Conservative and Alliance parties, it is more important to him to represent people.

"I'm bound as an independent especially, to represent the views of my constituents. They sent me here with healthy numbers. To represent them."

Mr. Cadman also made a great personal effort to be in the Commons. He is suffering from cancer and is currently undergoing chemotherapy. He flew in especially over the weekend to be present for the vote.

But he said the enormity of what he was about to do didn't bother him all that much.

"You know, I've gone through tougher things. We'll just leave it at that. I've gone through a lot tougher things than having to do this. This is -- there's a little bit of pressure here, but certainly nothing that was wearing me out."

He said he wants to see MPs get back into the Commons and get down to work from now on.

"Hopefully this will do something about that and get this Parliament working the way that everybody had high hopes for back after the election," he said.

The MP would not say how he would vote should there be another confidence motion, possibly on the next opposition day on May 31.

"I'll just have to wait and see. These are all hypotheticals. This was the one that I had to deal with this one. The next one, we'll wait and see."