[ryan29]

a federal by-election will be taking place in the federal riding of vancouver quadra , british columbia on March 17 , 2008

it is being held to replace liberal mp Stephen Owen who left his job as MP to pursue other things that were more important to him. this riding has been mostly liberal in recent years and was even home to John Turner liberal leader at one point.

from what i have read its been a competive by-election so far , but one with little issues or controversy like the churchill river one.




for some more information on this by-election i have included links to the main 4 candidates websites



Joyce Murray liberal
http://joycemurray.liberal.ca/default_e.aspx

Deborah Meredith conservative
http://www.deborahmeredith.ca/

Rebecca Coad ndp
http://www.rebeccacoad.ca/

Dan Grice green
http://www.dangrice.com/

[ryan29]

February 20,

UBC students out of the loop on Vancouver Quadra by-election
By Pieta Woolley

Students at UBC don’t seem to be aware the Vancouver Quadra by-election is happening, according to education student Michael Wolfe. It's not surprising, he said. Apart from the Green Party posters he's hung on campus, he hasn’t seen any others from the NDP, Liberals, or Conservatives, and no all-candidates meetings have been held there yet.

"We need to demand representation," Wolfe, who is part of the UBC Green Club and a Green Party candidate in Richmond for the upcoming federal, provincial, and municipal elections, told the Straight in a phone interview from campus. "Youth are more likely to vote if they’re informed....At UBC, we just had the lowest voter turn-out for the AMS [Alma Mater Society] elections ever. Hopefully, we’re at the lowest end of a curve, and things will start to improve."

It might help the other parties if the riding’s approximately 10,000 eligible student voters stay away from the polls. According to Vancouver Quadra Green Party candidate Dan Grice, federal party leader Elizabeth May took 80 percent of the student vote in the polls leading up to the London North Centre by-election.

In B.C., Wolfe said that at 26 he’s frequently the youngest Green Party member to show up at events. He thinks youth are driven away from political action because "there’s no direct consequence of being active".

As a middle-school teacher, he hopes to inspire the next generation to engage in politics. As for current generations, it’ll take a crisis such as no access to fresh water to get out the vote, Wolfe said.

http://www.straight.com/article-133023/ ... y-election


its interest there is a large university in this riding , that might have an effect on the outcome .

[ryan29]

March 4, 2008
Vancouver Quadra Conservative Deborah Meredith skirts question on secret military deal with U.S.
By Charlie Smith
The Conservative candidate in the Vancouver Quadra byelection told an all-candidates' meeting last night that she didn't know about an agreement that would permit U.S. troops to enter Canada in an emergency.

When a member of the audience asked about this agreement, which was reported in the Ottawa Citizen and republished in CanWest papers, Deborah Meredith said, "I don't know what the facts are, so I'm not going to respond to it."

Reporter David Pugliese, who specializes in military matters, revealed last month that the agreement was signed quietly in Texas on February 14.

Pugliese's story did not mention the possibility of U.S. troops entering Canada if there was an emergency during the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, but the agreement appears to clear the way for this to occur.

The byelection will be held on March 17 to fill the seat vacated by Liberal Stephen Owen.

The Liberal candidate, Joyce Murray, is a former minister of land, air and water protection in the Gordon Campbell government and cofounder of silviculture company Brinkman and Associates; New Democrat Rebecca Coad is a student and has been a volunteer with the Carnegie Centre, Oxfam, and other groups; the Green candidate is Dan Grice, a director of Fair Voting BC.


comment one person left on the site on this article -----

Wow! What a text book example of irrefutable yellow journalism on the part of the blogger who authored this piece. The most glaring being that the candidate hardly "skirted" a question by truthfully explaining she wasn't aware of the issue.

As for DJ Ball:

1. She is not a "Conservative MP" but rather is running as a candidate; and like her competitors, she can hardly be expected to be aware of all government, caucus or parliamentary issues, even public ones for that matter. Just because you want to believe she must be hiding something hardly makes it so.

2. Both you and the author suggest this to be an exclusive 'one way' arrangement when in fact it is bilateral meaning Canadians are expected to respond likewise to American emergencies by moving troops and equipment into the US.

3. You claim that this agreement was initiated by a Conservative government but to challenge your weak attempts at historical revisionism or outright subject ignorance, the modern process was actually begun by Pearson's Liberals as part of a northern defence strategy to counter Soviet aggression. Further, the actual sentiment behind the current agreement was inconveniently initiated under the authority of a Liberal Defence Minister and happened to be the latest step in a lengthy evolution of military relations and cooperation between Canada and the US.

4. You claim this is "unparalleled" but given your ignorance on the first three observations, I suspect
references to Canada's similar commitments with other Commonwealth nations, NATO, etc, not to mention the extremely long list of cooperative assistance agreements signed between hundreds of other countries would unlikely penetrate your partisan evaluation.

Cheers

http://www.straight.com/article-134683/ ... with-u-s?#


sounds like a plant question from an ndp or left wing type person .intended to make the conservative candidate look bad.

[ryan29]

February 21, 2008
Vancouver Quadra’s shades of election green
By Pieta Woolley

Parts of British Columbia are warming at twice the global rate; local salmon streams may soon be too hot to sustain spawns; and governments at all levels are not doing enough to halt climate change, according to the David Suzuki Foundation. With the organization located on West 4th Avenue in the idyllic riding of Vancouver Quadra, Suzuki’s message has seeped into the electoral district’s stately heritage homes over the past four decades. And if there’s one thing all four Vancouver Quadra by-election candidates can agree on, it’s that when they’re out knocking on doors, the environment is the number-one issue for voters.

With stakes so high, this March 17 by-election should sizzle. But so far it’s a snoozer. Since Liberal Stephen Owen quit almost seven months ago, in July of 2007, an empty seat has dogged the riding. A federal election looms, so none of the parties has released a platform, and with voting day less than a month away, there have yet to be any all-candidates meetings.


To Donald Gordon, founder of the Kitsilano-based Voters Taking Action for Climate Change, this by-election is a real opportunity. The riding’s affluence means folks can “look beyond their own back yards” and vote globally. Gordon sees this vote as a preview of the upcoming federal election, but he said that in terms of the environment, the messages couldn’t be more convoluted.

“A couple of years ago, a candidate could have told a voter anything [about climate change], and 99 percent would have shrugged and said ‘Okay,’ ” he told the Straight in a phone interview. “People are so much more informed now. But unless you sit down with each candidate for several hours and figure out their platform and decide what approach will be best five years from now, well, your average mortal can’t do that.”

He noted that the messages coming out of the candidates’ mouths have been so tightly scripted that it’s hard to know what they believe as individuals. “In Ottawa, a small number of people come up with sound bites that are the least objectionable and the most fuzzy,” he said. “People need more information. Is this person going to hole up behind what their party platforms are, or will they push for something more? Are they a leader or a follower?”

Three candidates are working hard to brand themselves as the true green choice: the Liberals’ Joyce Murray, the NDP’s Rebecca Coad, and the Green party’s Dan Grice. (Previously, the riding has always elected either a Liberal or a Conservative, and never a woman.) Murray was the Liberal MLA for New Westminster from 2001 to 2005 and minister of water, land and air protection for the first three years of that term. She last ran federally in 2006 as a candidate for the new riding of New Westminster–Coquitlam, but lost to the NDP’s Dawn Black.

Although Murray’s master’s thesis was on forest carbon sequestration, Coad tore into her political environmental record in a February 9 statement on her Web site. In her comments, she said Murray “was the minister responsible when the government ended the moratorium on fish-farming, ended the moratorium on hunting grizzly bears, and rejected the Kyoto Accord.”

Robert Kraljii, Murray’s communications manager, told the Straight that Coad’s statement was “so full of inaccuracies we’re not responding to it.” Murray was indeed in cabinet when the moratoriums were lifted (grizzly hunting in July of 2001, and fish-farming in September of 2002, according to the B.C. government Web site) and when premier Gordon Campbell expressed his concerns about Kyoto implementation to then–prime minister Jean Chrétien (October of 2002).

None of this particularly helps voters decide who will best safeguard the planet. So for Voters Taking Action, this by-election is a chance to prod candidates to spill their green guts. On March 6, the group plans to hold an all-candidates meeting. See vtacc.org/ for time and location.


http://www.straight.com/article-133009/ ... s-of-green

[ryan29]

Quadra by-election as seen through Facebook

> On their respective campaign pages, the Green party’s Dan Grice had 299 members; the NDP’s Rebecca Coad had 292; the Liberals’ Joyce Murray had 104; and the Conservatives’ Deborah Meredith had 44.

> The Neorhino party had 33 members, just 11 fewer than the Conservatives.

> Deborah Meredith’s candidate page is “a closed group. Members must be invited or approved by an admin.” It’s also the only one without a wall.

> The Conservatives’ voting-day-event page had only one member: UBC’s “Fan Fan”, who wrote on the wall, “Where the hell is everyone else?”

> The Green party’s Grice is the only Quadra candidate to respond to
discussions on a wall.

> All candidates apart from Grice seem to use their page as a static Web site instead of a dynamic social-networking tool.

All information was current as of February 19


http://www.straight.com/article-133009/ ... s-of-green


what a joke there trying to claim facebook groups are somehow an indicator of voters intent in this riding , and to join one of those groups you don't even have to live in the riding or province for that matter.

and to comment on the green article i posted , guess in that part of vancouver its a battle to be the most green fiendly candidate ? maybe its a west coast thing .

[ryan29]

Dion seeks Liberal support in Vancouver Quadra

Last Updated: Saturday, March 15, 2008 | 1:17 AM ET CommentsRecommendCBC News
Ahead of Monday's federal byelections, Liberal Party Leader Stephane Dion was working Friday to drum up support in the Vancouver Quadra riding.


Stephane Dion visits Vancouver Quadra riding Friday to support Liberal candidate Joyce Murray ahead of Monday's byelection.
(CBC)
Encompassing an area that includes the University of British Columbia, Quadra is one of the wealthiest ridings in the country and has been a Liberal stronghold for nearly a quarter of a century.

To ensure it stays that way, Dion and Deputy Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff attended an energetic party at the campaign headquarters of Liberal candidate Joyce Murray.

The riding is one of four election districts in Canada that will go to the polls on Monday. It is up for grabs following the resignation of Stephen Owen, who secured 49 per cent of the votes in the last election.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who was in Vancouver Tuesday and met with B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell, did not take time out to visit Quadra, where Deborah Meredith is the Conservative Party candidate.

Rebecca Coad is the New Democratic Party candidate in the riding.

Dan Grice is the candidate for the Green Party of Canada.


http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columb ... ction.html

[ryan29]

now that they brought in dion , is there going to be a liberal surge ?

ok just joking on that one. guess we find out soon what will happen.

[ryan29]

How green is our quadra? Byelection may tell
Barbara Yaffe, Vancouver Sun
Published: Saturday, March 15, 2008

Lacking star candidates or controversial local issues, a byelection to replace Vancouver-Quadra MP Stephen Owen has been dubbed a snoozer.

This is in contrast to three federal votes elsewhere in the country, also scheduled for Monday, which have captured national attention mainly because of those in the running.

In Ontario, prominent Liberals Bob Rae and Martha Hall Findlay, both past contenders for the party leadership, are widely expected to score wins.


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Font:****In the Saskatchewan riding of Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River, a tussle over the Liberal candidacy has raised the profile of that race. Wannabe-candidate David Orchard got sidelined when leader Stephane Dion controversially appointed Joan Beatty, a former New Democrat, as the party's representative.

All four ridings were held by Liberals and a sweep could give Dion, looking enfeebled of late, a badly needed boost.

In B.C., Vancouver-Quadra has been Liberal through seven votes spanning 24 years. It was held most recently by Owen, who stepped down last July.

The issue that has preoccupied those in the running at recently held all-candidates meetings has been the environment.

The Liberal, favoured to win, is Joyce Murray, a 53-year-old former provincial politician.

Murray was MLA for New Westminster from 2001 to 2005, serving as environment minister in Gordon Campbell's government before the premier saw the light on climate change.

Murray, who is making global warming the focus of her campaign, is being criticized by her opponents for her lack of vigilance on the green file.

"Her record was so poor during one term in office," asserts NDP candidate Rebecca Coad, "that she has twice been rejected by voters in her own backyard of New Westminster." Murray was indeed defeated in a 2005 provincial vote and again in a 2006 federal election.

At one public meeting Murray noted that her master's thesis in 1992 focused on global warming. "I'm a climate change activist."

Her website mentions her past work as a tree planter and that, while a cabinet minister, she rode her bicycle to the legislature in Victora.

"It is completely incomprehensible that the Harper Government continues to be in denial over the climate-change crisis," Murray says, referring to Harper as "a neo-Conservative Bush clone," and to his party as "the Reform Conservatives."

Murray has been endorsed by past Vancouver mayors Larry Campbell and Philip Owen and former B.C. Attorney General Geoff Plant.

According to the latest Angus Reid poll testing federal party support in B.C., Liberals are trailing Conservatives. However, for the Harperites, strong provincial backing doesn't necessarily translate into wins in urban seats like Quadra, home to the affluent west side of the city and the University of B.C. campus.

Conservative candidate Deborah Meredith, 57, is trying to turn that around, reminding voters only she can "secure a place at the decision-making table in a Conservative government."

Answering a question on climate change, Meredith received a lukewarm response when she told a UBC audience, "we have to be careful that we don't kill our economy by impractical, unrealistic measures."

The lawyer and lecturer at UBC's business school has been endorsed by Conservative Senator Gerry St. Germain and retired senator Pat Carney.

The NDP's Coad, a 24-year-old UBC student of political science and ethics, claims the backing of the Vancouver Fire Fighters' Union Local 18.

She's advising voters to use the byelection "to send a message" to what she terms "the Liberal-Conservative coalition."


The only male in the campaign is Dan Grice for the Greens, a 27-year-old business technology consultant, who asserts that people should direct their ballot his way since, in a byelection, "you're not going to get Stephen Harper outta there."

Grice is advocating a federal carbon tax, most especially on "every puff of pollution that comes out of those tar sands."

The candidate speaks in support of "an economy past petroleum" and the legalization of cannabis.

Grice is true to his politics, getting around on a mountain bike and a motorized scooter.

Vancouver-Quadra, while not a high-stakes nail-biter, could serve as a barometer of environmental concern among B.C.'s more well-heeled voters.

[email protected]


http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news ... 417499&p=2

[ryan29]

How Tories hope to win ethnic votes in B.C.
PATRICK BRETHOUR

From Monday's Globe and Mail

March 9, 2008 at 10:21 PM EDT

VANCOUVER — It was a low-key meeting, with a simple repast of butter tarts and tea.

But the get-together at the home of Deborah Meredith, Conservative candidate in the Vancouver Quadra by-election, underscores the party's drive to peel ethnic voters away from the Liberals — a strategy getting its first real tryout in next week's vote.

On that night in January, Ms. Meredith invited four dozen prominent members of various Chinese communities to meet with Secretary of State Jason Kenney, point man for the Tory push to woo ethnic communities. The message was simple, and one that the Conservatives have been hammering at for months: The party is inclusive, and its law-and-order agenda is in tune with the social values of ethnic communities.

The property-crime rate of Vancouver is an issue that will move voters to the Tories, Ms. Meredith said in an interview, during a brief respite in her campaign office.


Enlarge Image
A beauty salon advertises it's services in Marpole, south Vancouver in the byelection riding of Vancouver Quadra, March 8. (Lyle Stafford/For the Globe and Mail)

She added that the historical dominance of Quadra could crumble. "Traditional Liberal support is eroding."

Yet, this is a riding the Liberals have held for decades, and swept by nearly 20 percentage points in the last election. Liberal candidate Joyce Murray, a former provincial environment minister, said she sees that winning streak continuing, with voters repelled by the Tory record on climate change, and the recent furor over the Chuck Cadman bribery allegations.

Privately, the Tories say they feel they have little chance in the riding. The constituency is affluent and includes only a relatively small number of ethnic Canadians.

Indeed, one Tory said it is akin to Montreal's Westmount and Toronto-Centre, only without a significant proportion of lower-income voters.

"That's not our crew," said the Tory source, who asked not to be identified by name.

But the party may be able to declare victory of a sort, without an actual win at the ballot box, said Greg Lyle, managing director of Innovative Research Group Inc., an opinion research firm.

If the Conservatives can move their vote past 30 per cent, on the strength of their appeal to the Chinese community, that will bode well in a general election in other ridings with higher proportions of ethnic voters.

Visible minorities make up 30 per cent of Vancouver Quadra's population; Chinese Canadians alone account for nearly a fifth of the riding. That might seem to be a high proportion, but there are 11 more ridings in Metro Vancouver with higher concentrations of ethnic voters — with neighbouring Richmond at the top of that list, and a possible pickup for the Tories, Mr. Lyle said.

"Quadra is going to be a road test."

His contention is based in part on municipal voting patterns of the Chinese community, which has tended to support the Non-Partisan Association, the right-leaning option in Vancouver's local party politics.

NPA Councillor B.C. Lee backs up that view, saying he draws much of his support from Vancouver's Chinese communities — stressing the plural.

"When you say Chinese Canadian, it's like saying European Canadian."

He noted that the interests and inclinations of immigrants from Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland China can vary wildly from those of the historical community — the issue of the head tax charged to Chinese immigrants in the 20th century being a key point of differentiation. Newer immigrants don't look at the head tax as a personal and emotional issue, he said. "It doesn't register to them," said Mr. Lee, himself a Taiwanese immigrant.

Mr. Lyle said attitudes toward crime are another reason to believe that the Conservatives may be able to gain traction with Chinese communities. His firm's polling has found a schism between majority opinion, and the Chinese community's attitudes on crime and drugs, he said.

The prevailing attitude in the Lower Mainland is one that accepts drug use, and focuses on crime prevention rather than a law-and-order agenda — both at odds with the Conservative platform and record.

But Mr. Lyle said his polling has found Chinese voters exhibiting a greater enthusiasm for law-and-order measures, and more inclined to want a less lenient approach to drug users.

And for some Quadra voters, such as banking executive Alex Fan, the Tory record of managing the economy has sparked a reconsideration of voting habits.

"Before, I was Liberal. But more, now, I'm somewhere in the middle," the 43-year-old said.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ ... ostdiscuss

[Keemo]

hmm, last Federal Election, that riding voted:

Incumbent:
Hon. Stephen Owen

2006 Result:
Stephen Owen **28655 Liberal
Stephen Rogers 16844 Conservative
David Askew 9379 NDP
Ben West 2974 Green Party
Betty Krawczyk 263 No logo, so no idea
Marc Boyer 158 Marijuana Party
Donovan Young 41 Communist

To judge by the numbers of party members, this may be an interesting by-election.

Just as an aside, I noticed several of the articles posted came from The Georgia Straight. If the proposal to rename Georgia Straight to the Salish Sea goes through, will my favorite alternative newspaper from the 60's change it's name too?

[Keemo]

From the Green Part's web site, dated March 14:
The phone survey was conducted by the Green Party of Canada over the weekend
of March 8 to 10, 2008. This is before Green Party leader Elizabeth May visited the riding for three days (March 10-12) and before the endorsement of Grice as the candidate of choice by the Georgia Straight on March 13. The voice message asked "which political party are you planning to vote for on March 17th". Of 30,179 Vancouver Quadra numbers called, 648 voters responded. Their voting preferences were:

24.5% Liberal Party
18.8% Green Party
17.1% Conservative Party
13.3% New Democratic Party
26.2% undecided

[ryan29]

Keemo Keemo:

hmm, last Federal Election, that riding voted:

Incumbent:
Hon. Stephen Owen

2006 Result:
Stephen Owen **28655 Liberal
Stephen Rogers 16844 Conservative
David Askew 9379 NDP
Ben West 2974 Green Party
Betty Krawczyk 263 No logo, so no idea
Marc Boyer 158 Marijuana Party
Donovan Young 41 Communist

To judge by the numbers of party members, this may be an interesting by-election.

Just as an aside, I noticed several of the articles posted came from The Georgia Straight. If the proposal to rename Georgia Straight to the Salish Sea goes through, will my favorite alternative newspaper from the 60's change it's name too?

its expected it will stay liberal , but it might still be close and turnout could be the wildcard . i expect the cpc , ndp and green to do alot better . with the liberals losing votes . but possibly holding on only because there numbers were so high last time.