With a year to go before a provincial election, campaigning is already underway in the Powell River-Sunshine Coast riding.
B.C. Green Party leader Adriane Carr is first out of the gate. She was officially nominated as the Green candidate for this riding in Gibsons May 17. No other Green sought the nomination.
Carr got 26.8 per cent of the votes in the 2001 election, while then-incumbent Gordon Wilson, running as the NDP candidate, got 27.6 per cent. Liberal Harold Long won the election with 42.3 per cent, while Marijuana Party candidate Dana Larsen got 3.4 per cent.
Carr is unrepentant in the face of charges that she split the vote.
"The facts are I was well ahead of the NDP. Week three, I was at 31 per cent. The NDP could have decided, if they wanted one less Liberal in the house, that they could have backed me and I possibly could have won," Carr said. "It's looking that way, and I think in this next election they should count on me being the best candidate and the most likely candidate to win other than a Liberal."
This time around, Long is expecting the NDP candidate, rather than Carr, to be his toughest election challenger. Even though the NDP has yet to choose a candidate in this riding, "the polls tell you the NDP is the main contender," said Long.
He said he welcomes the challenge of a tough election fight.
"That's what politics is all about. There will be a contest," said Long.
Long said the only reason the NDP didn't fold after winning only two seats in the 2001 election, as his former Socred party did after a similar electoral shellacking in 1991, is the financial support the party receives from unions.
"The unions are propping them up," he said.
Despite the Liberal slip in popularity since the last election, Long said he'll be happy to defend his government's record in an election. He said the Liberal's main achievement has been to "get B.C. back in a stable position so we can do things that need to be done."
At least three people are seeking the NDP nomination in this riding: Norm Gleadow, president of the Sunshine Coast Teachers' Association; Judith Wilson, a Gibsons lawyer and long-time NDP activist; and Kathy Northrup, Gordon Wilson's former constituency assistant in Powell River.
Wilson (no relation to Gordon Wilson) started campaigning May 17 with a tour of Texada Island, Powell River and Lund, ending with a wine and cheese reception in Gibsons. Wilson said she stands for the traditional NDP principles of social justice. Her public statements take aim at Liberal leader Gordon Campbell.
"I urge everyone and anyone who has been dismayed by the decimation of government services and the sell-off of our public assets to get involved in the election process," said Wilson.
Gleadow said he's running because "the values of the province are being twisted around, with economics first and people last."
"I think it should be people first," he said.
Gleadow hopes to attract Green supporters to vote NDP to avoid a vote split as in the last election.
"The NDP can encompass the views and environmental concerns of the Greens and provide a much broader platform," he said.- with files from Laura Walz, Powell River Peak
