NEW DEMOCRATS HAVE HIGH HOPES IN B.C.

LIBERALS HOPING TO MAKE INROADS WHILE NDP FIGHTS FOR ITS FOOTHOLD ON WEST COAST

Volunteers toting orange placards crowd around NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, who has made a brief stop at a modest single-storey office in a Vancouver suburb as part of an effort to energize the local election campaign.

Between breaks for applause, Singh offers a few talking points before training his focus on the NDP’s candidate in the riding of Port Moody-Coquitlam. Bonita Zarrillo, a city councillor for the last six years, is among the party’s best hopes of holding onto a cluster of crucial seats in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, potentially staving off what polls suggest could be an electoral wipeout for the NDP.

“We know we’re going to win in this riding for sure with Bonita as a three-term city councillor and a passionate voice for the community,” Singh tells the crowd.

The region is also a primary target in the re-election bid of Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, who came to power in 2015 as part of a wave that painted this region red. Trudeau chose the nearby riding of Vancouver-Kingsway as the first stop in his election campaign, flanked by local candidate Tamara Taggart, a former TV newscaster, and Sara Badiei, an engineer and former international aid worker running against Zarrillo in Port Moody.

For Singh, retaining or expanding the party’s foothold in the region could help avoid what could be, at worst, a complete obliteration of the NDP this election. The party leader, dogged by waning national support in recent months, showed no such concern in the rally as he rattled off a list of party hopefuls around the Vancouver area.

“We’ve got lots of exciting candidates across the lower mainland,” he said.

He notes Svend Robinson’s campaign in Burnaby North-Seymour, a red seat NDP insiders believe could turn orange. Surrey-Newton, just southeast of here, is another tight race.

Voters in Port Moody-Coquitlam, like many other ridings here, are primarily concerned with housing affordability and the environment, campaign officials say. Zarrillo says her experience at the municipal level will help her bring together all three orders of government to expand affordable housing in the community.

“We need a federal partner at the table,” she said.

Despite her years of experience in politics, holding onto the seat for the NDP will require an intense effort after incumbent Fin Donnelly announced his resignation from federal politics late last year.

The NDP platform includes a 15-per-cent tax on foreign buyers to address housing speculation, particularly in Vancouver, as a way to lower housing prices. The Liberals, for their part, will raise the value of homes eligible for the first-time homebuyer incentive to $789,000 from $505,000, which they argue will provide young people access to mortgages.

In a small storefront near the NDP headquarters, Tim Vandergrift is setting up a new location for his company Fraser Mills Fermentation, which sells beer and wine tasting kits. Vandergrift is not an NDP member but said he will vote for the party this election, due in part to what he sees as a coziness between Ottawa and big business.

“Anybody who is rational and pragmatic has to be irritated with how the two major federal parties have conducted themselves,” he says.

Among his reasons, he cites the decision by Ottawa last summer to purchase the Trans Mountain pipeline for $4.4 billion, a move that effectively nationalized the project after its private sector owner threatened to pause any new investments amid legal challenges.

Campaign officials say voters are split on the issue, with some supporting industrial development, while a decidedly anti-oil sentiment persists among others. Just a short drive north of Vandergrift’s storefront, along the edge of the Burrard Inlet, a facility operated by Calgary-based Suncor Energy processes gasoline and other fuels from northern Alberta and distributes finished products to gas stations around the Vancouver area. The Trans Mountain pipeline, which Ottawa now plans to expand at a cost of roughly $12 billion, terminates in the riding of Burnaby North-Seymour, just west of Port Moody.

Liberal officials say Badiei, meanwhile, is among their most promising candidates in their bid to expand their representation in the Lower Mainland. The engineer began her career at B.C. Hydro, then moved onto a number of international organizations including the World Bank, where she provided consultation services on clean energy projects.

Badiei brushes off criticism that Trudeau, despite his claims otherwise, has failed to “do politics differently” and has instead become marred in several political scandals, including a monthslong effort to pressure former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould into offering a deferred prosecution for SNC-Lavalin, an affair that involved the Prime Minister’s Office working directly with legal representatives of the firm to undermine its own public prosecutor.

“I never, ever thought twice about running, because the people that are in the party, and that I look around at, I admire so much,” Badiei said.

On a recent Wednesday evening, Badiei and a few handfuls of volunteers went door-knocking in a newly gentrified neighbourhood in the heart of the riding. Her campaign team has already had boots on the ground for a year, ringing tens of thousands of doorbells, she says.

One man at his doorstep is polite but says he’s already made his decision. He’ll be voting Green.

“I’ve already heard everything I needed to hear,” he said.

@BONITAZARRILLONDP Bonita Zarrillo, a city councillor for the last six years, is among the NDP’s best hopes of holding onto a cluster of crucial seats in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia.