Horgan promotes NDP childcare plan
Leader goes on tour of Granville Island and meets with party candidates and voters
Mark Nichols has never voted NDP, but as he walked through Granville Island in Vancouver on Sunday, a chance encounter with leader John Horgan may have changed his mind.
Nichols, 30, and his wife Georgia spent several minutes chatting with Horgan about his $10 a day childcare plan, which has become a dominant issue for them as they struggle to find a space for their sevenmonth-old son Hank.
“It’s really like the first real voter issue I’ve ever felt like I’ve encountered in my life,” said Nichols, who has had his son on wait lists for almost a year and a half.
Nichols said the party platforms in previous provincial and federal elections have never really grabbed him until the childcare issue for his newborn in 2017.
The random encounter between Nichols and Horgan was just one of the interactions the NDP leader had with ordinary voters as he toured Granville Island with his candidate for Vancouver-False Creek, Morgane Oger. It’s a riding the NDP hope to win away from Liberal incumbent Sam Sullivan, and Horgan spent much of his morning walking the Granville market, speaking to shop keepers and potential voters.
After he left to continue campaigning, Nichols said he’s still undecided about whether he’ll vote NDP on election day, May 9.
Horgan’s low profile as a Vancouver Island MLA has always been one of his campaign’s problems, but he downplayed Sunday whether that was still an issue in the dying days of the campaign.
At V&J Plant Shop on Granville Island, Horgan purchased some flowers for his campaign staff and the woman in front of him in the line said she didn’t know who he was, or who the local candidate was, but she’d already voted NDP nonetheless.
Horgan said later he felt that was an example of the anger toward 16 years of B.C. Liberal government.
Horgan said he felt the morning of campaigning was largely successful. He also attended a rally at Vancouver-Fraserview candidate George Chow’s campaign office.
Later, Horgan attended a rally at Coquitlam-Maillardville where incumbent Selina Robinson had 41 volunteers in her office, symbolizing her 41-vote margin of victory (after a recount) in 2013.