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Vancouver Kingsway: the colours

Author: John P Egan (Independent)

8 Oct

I had a Dr.’s appointment in Kerrisdale this afternoon. My journey from work (1st and Boundary) to West Boulevard took me along Broadway, up Nanaimo, across 33rd–must of it the Vancouver Kingsway riding (VK).

VK is of course the riding of David Emerson. Paul Martin convinced Emerson to run for the Grits. Once Martin went down to Harper in 2006, Emerson went from “Stephen Harper is teh evil” to “sure dude, I’ll totally be your minister.” Many in the riding were choked about this–and still are.

So you’d think there’d be little support for the Tories in VK, right? Well if signs are…a sign of anything, there’s a lot of Blue (Cons.) in that there riding. There’s also a lot of Orange (NDP) and Red (Lib.). A lot of each. Here’s a bit on each candidate:

Salomon Rayek is a businessman who runs an import/export business.

Wendy Yuan is the CEO of Bradley Pacific.

Don Davies is a lawyer specializing in human and worker rights.

Doug Warkentin is a researcher engineer and environmental entrepreneur.

I found the rich swarths of colour profoundly moving. If only every riding was as engaged!

Filed under: British Columbia, Conservative, Green, John P Egan (Independent), Liberal, Local Campaigns, NDP, Vancouver / North Lower Mainland

7 Responses for "Vancouver Kingsway: the colours"

Whiskey Echo (N. Van, unaffiliated Canadian nationalist) October 8th, 2008 at 10:16 pm 1
Yeah, it’s hard to underestimate how pissed off people were about Emerson too. That riding’s been either Liberal or NDP since the Diefenbaker era, so I don’t expect a change from that, but one never knows.
Brenton October 8th, 2008 at 11:13 pm 2
I’m predicting a narrow Liberal win in the riding, but some NDP friends are quite positive. Wendy Yuan has no local profile, while Don Davies has lived in the riding for 23 years and is highly electable (knowledgeable, hard-working, personable, volunteer cred, etc.). An exciting one to watch, but not really a three-way race. A couple of other Lower Mainland ridings may truly be three-way races: Vancouver Centre and Burnaby-Douglas. Vancouver Centre is pretty wild.
Martin Hamel (Non-Partisan) October 9th, 2008 at 3:59 am 3
Emerson’s election would be a sad day for Canadian democracy. I trust vancouverians will do the right thing.

When people vote for a party (80% of voters do favor party over local candidate), it should not change. When it does, the candidate and party should be shown the door by electors. Otherwise, the whole system goes down. I mean, what’s the point of voting if the the party and program I chose just changes the next day for no valid reason?
Whiskey Echo (N. Van, unaffiliated Canadian nationalist) October 9th, 2008 at 4:49 pm 4
I think Yuan will win – had there been another Chinese candidate for the NDP, maybe not. But one thing I have learned watching politcs here is that a candidate that seems to have little or no profile in the English media might have a huge profile in foreign-language local media, and we just don’t see it.
bohemiablue October 9th, 2008 at 8:34 pm 5
I attended the entirety of the all candidates meeting at Collingwood Neigborhood House and concur with the poster who attended the meeting at the Polish Centre. It’s clear the real race is between Don Davies and Wendy Yuan… and that Don is a much better connected and more in-touch candidate of the two. Wendy spent much of the night attempting to pull heart-strings, repeating about four or five times that she was an immigrant who came with $25 and a dream and that she was grateful how Canada allowed her to fulfill her dream and that it’d be an honour to serve and that if she was given that honor, she’d be true to the people… blah, blah, blah… no real substance, the overall impression I got (and I tend to read people exceedingly well) was that she was following a script of what she thought people wanted to hear. I was also left with the impression that she dodged questions very well and gave much irrelevant info to advance her position. She also appeared nervous and unsteady and although she can be forgiven for that, I question her ability to fight for us in Ottawa. Bottom line: I don’t feel I can trust her.

Don, on the other hand, answered questions very directly and provided good details which demonstrated that he was familiar and close to the issues. Very calm and collected throughout, he looked parliamentarian and I would have faith that he could do a good job representing us. I spoke to him after the debate and picked his brain a bit about the NDP’s position on unions and health care and I felt that he listened well and considered my opinions carefully.

Good luck Don, you’ve got my vote.
macadavy October 10th, 2008 at 8:17 am 6
I was out in VanKing the other day and noticed those beautiful ‘fall colours’, too – healthy signs for democracy in our country, methinks.
I pulling for Don Davies, neither a Liberal nor a Conservative deserves to hold this riding after the Emerson fiasco!
Tim October 11th, 2008 at 2:01 am 7
Martin, David Emerson is not running in this election.

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