‘Impossible’ dream in Ottawa-Vanier
NDP candidate Emilie Taman challenging the Liberal stronghold
Even before they nominated highprofile former federal prosecutor Emilie Taman as their candidate in Ottawa-Vanier, members of the local NDP riding association were dreaming big.
“We can do the impossible,” association member Angela Rickman told a cheering crowd at the party’s packed August nomination meeting.
The idea of anyone but the Liberals winning a seat in Ottawa-Vanier — one of the safest and richest federal Liberal ridings in the country — has long been an impossible dream.
And it still appears to be a longshot.
The website Threehundredeight. com, which offers projections for all 308 federal ridings, gives the Liberals an overwhelming chance of holding on to Ottawa-Vanier. (The Conservatives, Greens, Libertarians and Marxist Leninists are also running candidates in the riding.)
But the NDP insists that if there was ever an election where they could topple the Liberal dynasty in Ottawa-Vanier, this one is it.
The heavily francophone riding has always been Liberal red since its inception as Ottawa East in 1935. And, until 2011, the Conservatives always placed a somewhat distant second.
Incumbent Mauril Bélanger was first voted into office 20 years ago, when the NDP’s Taman was a teenager and Conservative candidate David Piccini was just seven. Belanger has won every race since, grabbing 61 per cent of the vote in 1997.
But in 2011, the NDP — buoyed by the orange wave — came in second with a surprising 29 per cent of the vote, while the Liberals took just 38 per cent.
Now, with a high-profile candidate in Taman — the federal prosecutor who was fired after she was refused leave to run for office but did anyway, who’s the daughter of former Supreme Court of Canada justice Louise Arbour and who identifies as francophone — the NDP are optimistic of their chances on Oct. 19.
“A lot of the new members of the NDP in Ottawa-Vanier came to us from the Liberals,” says Taman. “They have joined the party, came to the nomination meeting and they want to volunteer on my campaign. I take that as a real sign of a readiness for change among a lot of longtime Liberals.”
Dressed in orange running shoes and an orange scarf on a typical day out in the riding, Taman says she feels “there is excitement about my candidacy, but also about our party’s potential in the riding.”
And her story resonates with the many public servants in the riding.
“As many people in this riding know, it has become harder to be a public servant,” Taman says, “and I want to fix that.”
Conservative candidate Piccini, former executive assistant to Conservative Trade Minister Ed Fast and coach of the men varsity soccer team at the University of Ottawa, says he has also sensed a mood for change in the riding.
“People here really do want a member that is engaged.”
He says former prime minister Jean Chrétien’s visit to the riding to help launch Bélanger’s campaign is a signal that the Liberals are worried about the seat.
“When you bring in a heavy hitter into the riding, it is definitely symbolic.”
But Rem Westland, who ran as a Conservative candidate in OttawaVanier in 2011 and wrote a book about it — Running for the People — believes that Ottawa-Vanier is unattainable for the Tories.
There are more than 82,000 voters in Ottawa-Vanier. The turnout in 2011 was 52,000. Westland says he believes there are between 13,000 and 15,000 Conservative votes in the riding. To win, the party would need to attract significant support from either the Liberals or New Democrats.
Westland points out that in the 2011 campaign, the NDP grabbed a significantly bigger share of the vote than ever before in the riding, while the Liberals’ share of vote declined by a similar amount.
There is often a limited amount individual candidates can do to get the votes needed to win, added Westland. And the Liberals not only have the machine and the tradition in the riding, but also the money.
In fact, Bélanger says the Liberal riding association has enough money in the bank to fund another election in case one is called soon after this one.
But the longtime incumbent says he is taking nothing for granted.
The 1993 federal election, in which the Progressive Conservative party suffered the worst ever defeat of a governing federal party, he said, stands as a lesson.