Crossposted to Bow. James Bow.

Last but not least in my riding-by-riding profile of Waterloo Region is Cambridge. The riding of Cambridge takes in the city of Cambridge and the rural township of North Dumfries.

Cambridge has always been a world apart from Waterloo Region. Although it exists in the same same county as Kitchener and Waterloo, it was a reluctant partner in the creation of the region, and Highway 401 acts as an effective psychological barrier between it and Kitchener. Its own identity has been somewhat mixed up, as it is an amalgamation of three distinct towns with three distinct characters (Galt, Preston and Hespelar). The city has a large manufacturing base, but is also a growing bedroom community for Toronto, thanks to its proximity to the highway.

Although the NDP finished second here as late as 1988 (as well as in 1984, 1980 and 1979), the riding has shown a more conservative bent. From 1979 to 1993 it was held by the Progressive Conservatives and although the Liberals held the riding from 1993 to 2004, their primary competition has been either the Reform Party or the Canadian Alliance.

Gary Goodyear beat Liberal MP Janko Peric in 2004 by just over 200 votes, after which he was named the Ontario chair of the Conservative Party caucus. Goodyear increased that margin to almost 6000 votes in the 2006 rematch against Peric. In that election, he received endorsements from Vote Marriage Canada and the Canadian Islamic Congress.

Goodyear is currently embroiled in a minor controversy surrounding the Procedure and House Affairs Committee. Originally selected to chair this committee, the opposition majority on committee voted him out in a motion of non-confidence, choosing Conservative MP Joe Preston instead. The work of the committee, which includes investigating the so-called “In and Out scandal”, was suspended on March 6, and the Conservatives refuse to allow it to continue until Goodyear is restored as chairman.

Goodyear returns this election, and faces off against newcomer Gord Zeilstra for the Liberals. Zeilstra has his own controversies to overcome. His nomination as candidate for the riding was hard fought, with some members of the riding association accusing his campaign of using improperly obtained membership lists. The central office investigated and, although it found an “unintentional breach” of the rules, “there is no evidence that Mr. Zeilstra obtained a numeric or tactical advantage through the use of riding membership forms.” He received a minor fine, but bad feelings remained. By and large, however, neither Goodyear nor Zeilstra’s controversies have been highlighted during this campaign.

Of the two remaining candidates, Max Lombardi is competing for the New Democrats, and Scott Cosman for the Greens.

Here’s the full list:

Gary Goodyear, 50, (Conservatives): Gary Goodyear has an MP website which is separate from his campaign website, which tells us a bit more about the man and the riding; certainly more than what we’ve received from Peter Braid and Stephen Woodworth’s campaign sites.

Goodyear was born in Cambridge and educated at the University of Waterloo, majoring in Biomechanics and Psychology, becoming a doctor of chiropractic medicine. He developed his practise up to 2004 when he gave it up to run for office. He has also maintained connections with the immigrant community, working to get the Canadian government to formally recognize the Armenian genocide, chairing hte Canada-Armenia Parliamentary Friendship Group and acting as an executive member of the Canada-Portuguese Group.

Recently, Goodyear has promised to become one of the first Members of Parliament to go carbon neutral, with the carbon emissions of his Cambridge and Ottawa offices offset through the planting of trees through Cambridge and North Dumfries.

Gord Zeilstra, 36, (Liberal): With the departure of Janko Peric, the Liberals have turned to a young businessman working in Waterloo Region’s tech sector. He is one of the founding employees of the job-finding site Monster.ca and is currently a regional vice president of Vurv Technology, a company which finds qualified new hires for high tech companies. Outside of his work, Zeilstra calls himself “a participant in many campaigns”. His degree is a Bachelor of Arts in communications and political science. He’s young, energetic, but inexperienced. Conservative party supporter Greg Staples said of him during a recent all-candidates’ debate: “he was a bit unsteady in his answers, being a rookie, but the Liberals should not be embarrassed with him as their flag bearer. Once he grows into the role he will be a tough opponent next time around.”

Zeilstra is married to his wife of fourteen years and has two young daughters.

Max Lombardi, 40, (New Democrats): It’s proven hard to get detailed information about Max Lombardi and his contributions to the political life of Cambridge. The NDP website barely calls him more than “a long-time Cambridge resident”. He currently works as an Information technologist for NEBS Payroll Service Limited. The bulk of his campaign has been about the loss of manufacturing jobs in Ontario, which should get a receptive ear from the large manufacturing sector in Cambridge.

Scott Cosman, 55, (Green): Cosman has lived in Waterloo Region since 1955, graduating from Wilfred Laurier University with a business administration degree. He has worked for thirty years in sales and marketing for such firms as Neilson’s Ltd, Carnation Inc, and Bell Mobility. His most recent work has been for Miser Lighting, a company dedicated to selling high efficiency lightbulbs to businesses.

Given Gary Goodyear’s advantage of incumbency, and the riding’s conservative character of late, I expect that this one will remain in the Conservatives’ column this election.

• Greg Staples reviews the Cambridge all-candidates’ debate.

Kitchener-Conestoga is the main rural riding of Waterloo Region, wrapping around the east, north and west of the cities of Kitchener and Waterloo, and swallowing a bit of suburban Kitchener on its southwest side. While the area was represented by Liberal Lynn Myers from the nineties up to 2006, Conservative Harold Albrecht defeated Myers in the last election by just 1,400 votes.

Albrecht is on record as opposing same-sex marriage, but he won the riding in 2006 by downplaying his opposition to the measure, only responding when asked by reporters, and tempering his defence of traditional marriage with talk of civil unions. This contrasts with the 2004 election when Conservative candidate Frank Luellau got into hot water for anti-gay comments made at a local all-candidates’ meeting.

Since the 2006 election, Albrecht has represented his riding quietly, without controversy. In Ottawa, he chairs the BioCaucus, a group of MPs promoting the production of agricultural and renewable technologies, and he sits on the Government Operations and Estimates committee and the Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development committee. He favours stiffer sentences for youth offenders committing violent crimes.

Notable by their absense in this riding, almost, are the New Democrats. The party only managed to nominate Rod MacNeil eight days after the election was called. And while the other parties were busy plastering the roadsides with big campaign signs, New Democratic signs were nowhere to be seen. When MacNeil’s campaign workers finally managed to get some signs up on the arterials, they unfortunately selected small, garden-style signs rather than the larger ones the other three parties were using. As a result, the New Democrats look dwarfed here.

The New Democrats’ loss might be the Green Party’s gain, as their candidate Jamie Kropf roared out of the gate on the date of the election call, and got large Green Party signs up as fast as Albrecht’s campaign workers could get Conservative blue signs to match. The subconscious appearance of a three-party race here could well elevate Kropf to third place come election night.

The Liberal candidate, Orlando DaSilva, was a little slow in starting his campaign, but caught up, matching Albrecht and Kropf sign for sign. Now, heading out along Homer Watson, Courtland Avenue or Ottawa Street, you can typically see patterns of Blue, Red and Green, Blue, Red and Green, with occasional specks of orange.

But Kitchener-Conestoga has been the one riding in the area that I’ve noticed significant campaign sign vandalism (in my admittedly limited experience). DaSilva’s signs would appear to be the target more often than not, suggesting that the fight for the riding is still quite passionate.

Here’s a list of who all is running

Harold Albrecht, 58 (Conservatives): Albrecht has lived in Kitchener all his life. He is a former pastor, educated at Waterloo Lutheran University (now Wilfred Laurier) and has also owned a private dental practise for 27 years. He left dentistry to become a pastor for the Brethren in Christ church, and left that job in 2005 to seek the Conservative Party nomination for the riding. Albrecht has also gone on a number of Christian missions to the third world. He is married and has three adult children and seven grandchildren. He also owns and operates a 75 acre farm.

Orlando DaSilva, 40 (Liberals): This long-time Liberal has served as a legal representative in the Ontario ministry of the Attorney General. Born and raised in Kitchener to a Cape Breton mother and a Portuguese father, DaSilva helped found Ontario Students Against Impaired Driving while still in high school. His work since has remained in the legal field, including acting as treasurer for the Ontario Bar Association and a founding member of the Portugese Canadian Lawyers Association. Da Silva is married and has a 9-year-old daughter.

Rod MacNeil, 48 (New Democrats): A long-time Kitchener resident, MacNeil only became a card-carrying member of the NDP a year ago. He and his wife Suzy own two businesses, Karaoke Kommotion and Curious Creations, and he is a certified reflexologist. The New Democrats quickly built a web page for him, but he clearly speaks from his heart when describing why he’s running.

Jamie Kropf, 55 (Greens): Kropf has also lived in the area all his life, working in sales and management within the information technology sector for thirty years. He graduated from the University of Waterloo with a Bachelor of Mathematics, and has a Masters of Business Administration from Wilfred Laurier. With his wife of 32 years, he has three adult children and one grandchild. His website looks a little thrown together, but at least he has one, and at least it is detailed.

I expect that Albrecht will hold this riding, despite a strong challenge from DaSilva. More interesting will be where Kropf places against MacNeil.

Further Reading

• A similar interesting battle was had for Kitchener-Conestoga during the 2007 provincial election. In that case, the Liberal won.

In southwestern Ontario, a key battleground in these gloomy economic times, Cambridge is shaping up as a nail-biter. The incumbent Tory, second-termer Gary Goodyear, has gone through some tough scrapes in Parliament. Manufacturing accounts for 20 per cent of jobs. The fact that four Liberals battled it out for the nomination, and that was last November, may be a clue. link

While it’s true that Gord Zeilstra of the Liberal Party has a head of steam and that Gary Goodyear has a less than stellar record as an MP, the two other parties may play spoiler. Max Lombardi of the NDP and Scott Cosman of the Greens could pull enough votes away from Zeilstra to ruin any chance at an upset.

Given that Mr. Cosman is a virtual unknown in the riding (even within the local Green Party association) and was nominated after the election call, it’s unlikely that we’ll see much of an impact from the Greens. The NDP, however, have an opportunity to capitalize on the significant manufacturing job losses that have plagued Cambridge in recent years. If the NDP can mobilize the local labour pool in their favour, they may be able to pull votes from both the Liberal and Conservative candidates – though it’s unlikely it would be enough for a win.

At this point with 27 days to go, I’ll go out on a limb and predict a narrow Conservative win in Cambridge. That prediction, of course, is subject to change – stay tuned.

The riding is represented by Conservative, Joe Preston, who swept to power in the wake of the sponsorship scandal in the June 2004 election, garnering 20,333 votes and defeating the incumbent Liberal, Gar Knutson. In the January 2006 election he held his seat and defeated the Liberal candidate and former mayor of Thames Centre, Crispin Colvin, by almost 10,000 votes.

The New Democrats have never elected an MP here and have usually trailed behind in third or fourth place. The Canadian Alliance in 2000 and, back when the riding was part of Middlesex-Lambton in 1993, the Christian Heritage party, surpassed the NDP in the number of votes. Not the most promising of prospects for NDP candidate Ryan Dolby.

Dolby’s strategy will likely concentrate on the loss of manufacturing jobs in the riding, an area of expertise for him being a Union Benefits Representative with CAW Local 2168 and a local trustee and chairman of the Union in Politics committee. He is hoping his success in union politics will have prepared him enough for his first foray onto the national scene. Whether or not this will be a winning strategy remains to be seen. The London Free Press has mentioned that Dolby is a “particularly strong candidate” because he is “attuned to the layoffs that have hit the auto sector and left thousands out of work in the London area.” Dolby, is a native of Chatham, Ont. and moved to St. Thomas in 1994 when he landed a job on the assembly line at Lear Corporation. He now lives in Shedden with his wife Laura and their three children.