16 Responses for "Breaking News: NDP Candidate Julian West Out of Saanich-Gulf Islands"

1. Bill Dunk-Green September 23rd, 2008 at 12:35 pm 1

   Elections Act:

   “74. (1) A candidate may withdraw at any time before 5:00 p.m. on the closing day for nominations by filing, in person, with the returning officer a statement in writing to that effect signed by the candidate and witnessed by two electors who are entitled to vote in the electoral district in which the candidate’s nomination was confirmed.”

   Since nominations are closed and he was accepted as the candidate by EC, his name will be on the ballot whether he likes it or not (unless he withdrew prior to the deadline and this is only coming to light now).

2. Greg Morrow (Non-Partisan) September 23rd, 2008 at 1:02 pm 2

   Yes, Bill, at issues is whether he is on the ballot. From my information, the candidate is in discussions with the Elections Canada about this as we speak.

3. Bill Dunk-Green September 23rd, 2008 at 1:14 pm 3

   I will wait and watch, Greg. My experience with Elections Canada is that they are the most rule driven of any bureaucratic organization I’ve ever dealt with (and that includes Revenue Canada!) It will be interesting to see whether they accommodate his request.

4. RossK September 23rd, 2008 at 2:31 pm 4

   Re: the strate(r)gy sure to follow…..

   In addition to Mr. Lewis’ 17%, it is important to realize how vulnerable the Minister, Mr. Lunn, is here given that he only received 37%, while the Dipper got 27 and Lib 26.

   It’s an uber-split riding.

   And one thing you may not know Greg….Ms. Penn has a huge Q score, particularly amongst greeniacs and TeeVee watchers locally.

   .

5. Nick J Boragina September 23rd, 2008 at 6:24 pm 5

   On the ballot or not, this will swing a large number of NDP votes away (much like the tory vote in the southern interior) The Greens stand to benefit bigtime, especially with the party cosing in on 20% in BC. This seat will go green.

6. Chris September 23rd, 2008 at 7:10 pm 6

   Good news for the Green party. I hope they win.

7. Bill Dunk-Green September 23rd, 2008 at 7:18 pm 7

   From the GlobeandMail.com

   “Elections Canada official Susan Friend said that Mr. West’s resignation came too late in the campaign to have his name struck.

   ‘He didn’t withdraw by the deadline. His name will be on the ballot,’ she said.”

8. Greg Morrow (Non-Partisan) September 23rd, 2008 at 7:55 pm 8

   I have also confirmed with my sources that indeed, West will be listed as the NDP candidate in Saanich-Gulf Islands. Since half the NDP supporters will vote for him anyway, his resignation probably doesn’t change the race that much.

9. Whiskey Echo (N. Van, not affiliated or decided... yet) September 23rd, 2008 at 8:47 pm 9

   Hopefully what NDP forces remain there will mobilize to shift their votes elsewhere strategically, instead of voting for a candidate that’s not actually running anymore, but given their long-term strategy to supplant the Liberals and keep down the Greens, it’s unlikely they’ll make such an effort.

10. RossK September 23rd, 2008 at 9:23 pm 10

    Greg….

    If half of Mr. West’s votes stay that means the other half, based on past performance could be 10-15%…..which, in this race is massive, especially when you consider the fact that probably less than 0.01% of that will go to Lunn.

    Nick J–

    Be very interested to know what you are basing your break to the Greens on?

    (remember Saanich GI is one strange multi-headed hydra party riding)

    .
    .

11. Scott Tribe September 24th, 2008 at 5:24 am 11

    Greg:

    Not sure how you can claim that just because West’s name remains on the ballot, it won’t affect the race “that much”.

    Even If “only” half of the NDP vote shifts elsewhere, Lunn is in big trouble, in my view.

12. janfromthebruce September 24th, 2008 at 5:55 am 12

    “Hopefully what NDP forces remain there will mobilize to shift their votes elsewhere strategically, instead of voting for a candidate that’s not actually running anymore, but given their long-term strategy to supplant the Liberals and keep down the Greens, it’s unlikely they’ll make such an effort.”

    And the liberals and greens long-term strategy is WHAT?

    Considering that Bobbie Rae was stumping for the local lib candidate in long-term NDP Libby Davies riding (http://www.ubyssey.ca/?p=4241) and finished his speech with “a vote for the NDP has become a vote for Stephen Harper.”

    So, yeah, we are all uniting to defeat the Harper, right? Let’s not have selective optics here, and widen that lens so that we really see what’s going on. Looks like the libs are more interested in taking out long-serving NDP MPs than taking on Harper. Now there’s strategy for you.

    With my little rant aside, it would make more sense for the NDP election machine in that riding to move next door and put all their efforts into beating Keith Martin, don’t you think? This way, the New Democrats resources go to beating this Con, which they actually had a better chance of unseating, than wasting their resources to helping Liberals and Greens.

    So returning to my prefixed rant, obviously the libs seem it’s a good use of their resources of trying to unseat NDP rather than using them to unseat Cons.

    This explains why in election 2006, the only party to actually unseat an conservative was the NDP.

    So let the libs and Greens put their resources together and beat Lunn, unless of course, the libs are really just about libs.

13. Greg Morrow (Non-Partisan) September 24th, 2008 at 8:01 am 13

    Scott — let’s say before West’s resignation, the projected vote was CPC 40%, NDP 22%, LIB 20%, GRN 17% (this is about what our projection was). Remember Lunn had over 37% last time and the CPC is up in BC from 2006.

    If half of NDP supporters vote NDP anyway, that’s 11%. So there is another 11% that probably gets split between the LIBs and GRNs (probably more to the Greens). So what you might get is CPC 40%, GRN 24%, LIB 24%, NDP 11%. That’s what I was thinking when I said it because West’s name stays on the ballot that it “won’t impact the race that much”.

    But my words were not very precise – what I should have said is it probably won’t prevent Lunn from winning. West’s resignation will change the race; but what I was getting at is that Lunn is so far ahead and the left vote is so split between the Liberals and Greens and the remainder of NDPers who will vote for West anyway that it’s likely that Lunn will still win, unless there is a concerted effort to direct all the left votes to one candidate (Andrew Lewis of the Greens or Briony Penn of the Liberals).

14. Darcy Lindzon September 24th, 2008 at 2:24 pm 14

    I’m interested to see how many voters do vote for a non-candidate. It will tell us a little about how much people actually pay attention.

    I have faith that most will figure it out before election day.

15. Robin Annschild September 27th, 2008 at 4:43 pm 15

    Yes, we are making a concerted effort to unite the progressive vote in my riding. No matter where we’ve chosen to put our progressive vote in the past, this time we’re uniting our vote behind Briony Penn, who has chosen to put her green candidacy with the Liberal Party.

16. Laurel October 6th, 2008 at 8:43 pm 16

    I voted for Briony Penn today (advanced polls). She’s the co-founder of the Land Conservancy of BC and is still part of the provincial green party. And, both the federal NDP and the Green party approached her to run for them… It’s still weird to think that I just voted Liberal, but she’s the greenest Liberal I’ve ever met.

    And she rode naked (well nearly-naked) through Vancouver to save Salt Spring’s forests. She’s pretty awesome.

    I hope other people get behind her.