South Surrey-White Rock voters head to the polls today
On the eve of Monday’s federal byelection in the riding of South Surrey-White Rock, the two front-runners in what is expected to be a tight race made their last-minute pitches to voters.
Both the Liberals’ Gordon Hogg and the Conservatives’ Kerry-Lynne Findlay campaigned down to the wire ahead of the byelection — one of four across Canada that could indicate which way federal political winds are blowing.
“We are going to work very hard to deliver every vote,” said Hogg, who spent Sunday door-knocking and doing a number of interviews. “We don’t take anything for granted.”
“It’s a very close race,” said Findlay, who started the day at church and a toy drive before doing her share of door-knocking.
Byelections tend to be a referendum on the governing party, and these fall about halfway through the Liberals’ term.
“It’s a road to 2019 for either party, and we hope to see the momentum coming out of a win here and carry us through to more seats in 2019 in B.C.,” said Findlay, who hopes to retain the riding for the Tories after Dianne Watts quit the seat earlier to year to pursue the leadership of the B.C. Liberal Party.
The riding, created in 2012, encompasses areas that have traditionally swung Conservative. But as Trudeaumania hit B.C. in 2015, Watts, Surrey’s popular mayor, narrowly won the seat by a 1,439-margin over Liberal candidate Judy Higginbotham.
Both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and opposition leader Andrew Scheer have visited Surrey twice during the campaign to stump for their candidates.
Hogg, who had served as councillor and mayor of White Rock and a five-term MLA and a cabinet minister, has an edge in name recognition. “I have lived in this community all my life,” he said. “I feel very fortunate to have a diverse and lengthy understanding of this community.”
But Findlay, who has the edge in experience in the federal political arena, believes voters are ready to return their Conservative roots.
“What I am hearing at the door from a number of people are Conservatives who voted with the Liberals last time because they believed in the promise of a different leader are now having buyer’s remorse,” she said.
Findlay represented Delta-Richmond East from 2011 to 2015 and was appointed minister of national revenue. She was unseated in the riding in 2015 by Liberal MP Carla Qualtrough.