Justin and Jagmeet: Campaigns collide in Lower Mainland
Credit to Author: Nick Eagland| Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2019 02:13:32 +0000
For the blink of an eye, Metro Vancouver was the battleground to watch in the federal election campaign.
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh spent two days west of the Rockies this week, pitching for votes. Political scientists say both have plenty of good reasons to show their faces in B.C.
On Tuesday, Singh travelled from Winnipeg to his home riding, Burnaby South, where Trudeau had made an announcement ahead of a Surrey-Centre campaign rally. It was Singh’s first visit to B.C. this election. Trudeau launched his campaign here Sept. 11.
Singh started Wednesday in Vancouver by making a policy announcement at the annual Union of B.C. Municipalities convention before heading to city hall for a conversation with Mayor Kennedy Stewart. Later, he met with supporters in Port Moody.
Trudeau spent Wednesday morning making an announcement in Delta before flying to a campaign rally in Thunder Bay, Ont.
Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks with supporters during an election campaign rally in Surrey Sept. 24, 2019.
A third leader, the People’s Party of Canada’s Maxime Bernier, was applauded Wednesday by supporters inside and dogged by protesters outside a morning business town hall in Surrey, before a rally in Vancouver. (Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer spent Wednesday in Quebec, while Green party Leader Elizabeth May was in Halifax.)
Given that polls haven’t shown any of the candidates making big moves, they see some good chances to flip seats in B.C., said Sanjay Jeram, a senior lecturer in political science at Simon Fraser University.
“B.C. is a bit of a battleground in this election,” Jeram said. “I imagine that they see — especially Singh — an opportunity for certain seats to be turned here, seats that have turned a few times.”
Singh has honed in on how important the environment and housing are to B.C. voters, Jeram said. He has paid attention to what is popular here, including the provincial government’s foreign buyer’s tax, for which he is pitching a federal version.
“We’re seeing Singh come out with very specific criticisms — certainly political rhetoric — saying that Justin Trudeau spent this much money on a pipeline, as opposed to helping with housing in B.C.,” Jeram said.
Trudeau, on the other hand, sees an alignment between his and B.C. Premier John Horgan’s popularity, Jeram said. Trudeau is trying to convince British Columbians who are happy with Horgan that his continued success is contingent upon having the federal Liberals in power, he added.
Federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh at Postmedia (Vancouver Sun / The Province) in Vancouver, BC, September 24, 2019.
Hamish Telford, an associate professor of political science at the University of the Fraser Valley, said the Liberals seek to expand their support in B.C., or at least put pressure on the NDP, in ridings such as Vancouver-Kingsway, Burnaby South and Victoria, and on the Conservatives in Kamloops. This is to potentially offset the loss of ridings elsewhere, Telford said.
He described the NDP and Liberal environment policies as “not dissimilar,” though the NDP’s policies on climate change are more ambitious and might sound better to voters, he said.
“But the Liberals — Justin Trudeau’s — real Achilles’ heel is that he bought a pipeline,” he said. “The NDP have exploited that and will continue to exploit that.”
Telford said the pipeline purchase may give the NDP a “moral high ground” on the environment but whether its plan is better than the Liberals is to be determined.
“The Liberal counter to the sort-of NDP moralism is their argument that, ‘Well, the NDP isn’t going to form government so our plan, by definition, more realistic and the one that will be applied. If you don’t support our plan then you get Andrew Scheer’s plan, which is worse,’ ” Telford said.
He expects the Conservatives to win some ridings back — particularly north of the Fraser River — but said the party’s “relatively weak” environmental policies will prevent them from gaining much ground.
Singh needed to check in on his home riding, said Gerald Baier, an associate professor of political science at the University of B.C. Baier said the February byelection wasn’t a good indicator of whether Singh can maintain his hold on it. (Singh’s 8,848 votes beat Liberal Richard T. Lee’s 5,919.)
Baier said there are a handful of issues top-of-mind in B.C. that matter to the rest of Canada, most notably climate change, which is why both Singh and Trudeau spent plenty of time talking about how they would reduce emissions. He said it made sense for Singh to hammer the Liberals over their government’s purchase of the pipeline, and present it as evidence that Trudeau hasn’t come through on his pledge to protect the environment.
“When (Singh is) talking to traditional NDP voters, I think the conjecture is that some of those people last time around, decided to vote Liberal for a couple of reasons,” Baier said. “One was the promise for electoral reform, and the spectre of another four years of Harper would have been another part of it. This time, Trudeau doesn’t have that advantage.”