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The Battle
for Quadra
The March 17 by-election, narrowly won
by Liberal Joyce Murray, contained hints of how the
next federal election will be fought
By John Burns
The seats were the Liberals’ to lose. That was
the thinking around the March by-elections in the West
Side riding of Vancouver Quadra and across the country.
In Ontario and Saskatchewan, as in British Columbia,
Grits were expected to sweep the polls, holding on to
their seats in the Legislature. Ballots tallied, however,
the red tide ebbed short of the expected quadfecta.
Saskatchewan went to a first-time Conservative candidate.
In Quadra, the gap between Liberal and Conservative
was so narrow—151 votes—that a Conservative
recount call is rumoured.
By-elections results are notoriously difficult to predict.
Turnout is low: only 34 percent of eligible voters in
Quadra took part in the by-election, compared to 63
percent in the general election of 2006. Campaign spending
is humbler. Strategic voting goes out the window; for
all the posturing on street corners, at all-candidates
meetings, and in newspaper articles and on-line rebuttals,
candidates get their push from private kaffeeklatsches
and public appearances with party bosses. Were you,
by chance, invited to Conservative candidate Deborah
Meredith’s house for butter tarts and tea in January,
to meet Secretary of State Jason Kenney? If so—if
you’re one of the 50 or so influentials meant
to spread the law-and-order message into the Chinese
community—consider yourself a Tory super-delegate,
squarely in the sights of the new electioneers. If not,
you may not know what Meredith, a frequent no-show during
the campaign, even looks like.
“Tonight we are sending a very clear message to
Stephen Harper: the Liberals are strong,” Joyce
Murray told jubilant supporters on voting night; but
perhaps a clearer message in this hotly contested, widely
ignored by-election comes from an analysis of the dramatically
two-tiered results: 20,159 votes (71.6 percent) for
Murray and Meredith, the 50-something main-party candidates,
versus 7,856 votes (27.9 percent) for their 20-something
NDP and Green party rivals.
No sooner had the scrutineers pocketed their spectacles
than it was the pundits’ turn. What does the Grits’
three-for-four victory mean? Were these by-elections
really about law and order, or the environment, or national
security? And whither Quadra? The sixth-richest riding
in Canada is also the second-most-educated, and one
of the country’s oddest, encompassing Southlands
mansions, Kits co-ops, and Point Grey basement suites
(not to mention the Musqueam reserve and UBC). How did
nearly Murray manage to lose a district that’s
voted Liberal continuously since 1984, winning by only
the slimmest of margins? And what does the by-election
portend for the coming general election?
Been There, Done That
Anyone who could preside over the dismantling of the
B.C. Ministry of the Environment, then run on an environmental
platform, must be blessed with nerves of iron. And indeed
Murray, 53, who has an MBA from SFU, displays a Hillary-like
mettle, honed perhaps during her years in the first
Gordon Campbell administration. At the March 3 all-candidates
meeting, hosted by the Dunbar Residents Association,
Murray took the floor for her opening five minutes.
“Can everyone hear me?” she began. “Can
you hear me at the back?” “No! No!”
came the reply. “Good,” said Murray, in
a neat encapsulation of modern politics. “Then
I’ll begin.”
At another all-candidates meeting, hosted on March 6
by Voters Taking Action on Climate Change, Murray addressed
head-on the most apparent difference between left-wing
candidates Rebecca Coad (NDP, 24) and Dan Grice (Green
party, 27), and herself and rival Deborah Meredith (Conservative,
57). “I really appreciate seeing the fire and
brimstone of the NDP candidate; she’s clearly
very passionate and very committed, and I welcome young
people taking part in the political process.”
Coad, not without sarcasm: “Thanks, Joyce.”
Murray made much of her work in reforestation. “I
planted 500,000 trees with these hands in the province
of British Columbia” was a mantra during the campaign,
and neatly figured into her focus on climate change
(the subject of her oft-mentioned 1992 master’s
thesis). “I’m proud I went from planting
seedlings to planting the seeds of an awareness and
a commitment on climate change,” Murray has said.
“And we’re seeing those seeds germinate
in British Columbia today.”
Murray came to federal prominence after co-chairing
the 2006 campaign in British Columbia to elect Liberal
leader Stéphane Dion. “This by-election
is not just some kind of poll,” she has said.
“This by-election is critical to create momentum,
and that’s the momentum to get Mr. Dion into the
prime minister’s chair. You can shoot at that,
but I am the candidate who has experience serving the
public.” In the end, that may be what carried
the day.
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