Former PC runs for city Greens

Backrooms column by Dan Hilborn
Published Dec. 17, 2005


A former Progressive Conservative candidate and past Burnaby mayoral candidate will be running for the Green Party in Burnaby-Douglas this election.

Ray Power, a former RCMP officer and manager of security services at Vancouver city hall, said he joined the Greens because of his "total disillusionment" with the more traditional parties.

"The other ones, they just switch their policies to fit the convenience of the moment," Power said. "I see the Green Party as a group with some integrity."

Power has a long and varied political pedigree. Besides running for the Progressive Conservatives in Burnaby-Douglas during the 1997 election, he ran for mayor under the Burnaby Voters Non-Partisan Association banner and, most recently, made an independent run for the mayor's chair in Vancouver.

A resident of the Capitol Hill neighbourhood since moving from Saskatoon in 1992, he now runs his own business, Power's Flowers, on south Victoria Drive in Vancouver.

"I grew up in a rural environment in Newfoundland with horses, cutting hay and splitting wood," he said. "I see a need to use less pesticides and to be more careful in caring for the environment."

While he received only 171 votes in the recent Vancouver civic election, Power noted that he stopped campaigning on Oct. 26 after his six-and-a-half-year-old grandson died. In the civic election, Power campaigned in favour of whistleblower legislation, and his official platform said he was opposed to providing "a safe haven for the criminals to inject the proceeds of their crimes."

LIBERALS GAINING IN PIZZA POLL

Just one week into the official campaign and the Romana Restaurant pizza poll is showing the NDP is holding its own but the Liberals are gaining ground.

The NDP was leading the unofficial poll with 103 votes on Thursday morning, just five votes ahead of the Liberals with 98. The Conservatives are trailing at 79 and the Greens pulling up the rear with 37 ballots, says Jenny Siormanolakis.

While the NDP has held the lead since the pizza poll was first announced, the Liberals actually earned a few more votes in the second week of casting ballots. Over the previous five days, the Liberals received 17 new votes, while the NDP had 13, the Tories eight and the Greens five.

The restaurant will donate $1 to the Burnaby Christmas Bureau for every pizza sold in their restaurant during the election campaign. With more than one vote per pizza, the restaurant has collected about $60 in donations so far.

Siormanolakis, the daughter of the family that has operated the restaurant at 4660 Hastings for the past 33 years, said her biggest surprise was the Green party receiving about 12 per cent of the votes.

GIDORA FLIES RED FLAG

Voters in Burnaby-Douglas will be among the few in Canada who will have a Communist on the ballot when they go to the polls on Jan. 23.

George Gidora, a self-described 'third generation' member of the party, laughed when asked why the Communist party was believed to have died during the the 1990s.

"We only wanted people to think that," said Gidora, a Vancouver resident who has run about half a dozen times for the party of the working classes. "Personally, I was born into it. Both sets of grandparents and both my parents were members.

While Gidora does not hold out any false impressions about the likelihood of his getting elected, he does say the lean times of the past decade have forced his party to take a good look at its policies.

If elected, the party would "start dismantling capitalism and building socialism through a peaceful process. Much like Allende did in Chile in the 1970s and like Chavez in Venezuela today." Policies would include the nationalization of the banking system, and all resource-based industries.

"A vote for the Communists is a statement that people are looking for change - that they're not looking for Band-Aid," Gidora said. "If you believe there is something fundamentally wrong with this system, we want to talk to you and we want to ask for your vote."

The Communist party intends to run about 20 candidates across the country.

LAYTON MISSES PHOTO OP

NDP leader Jack Layton may be putting a whole lot of effort into winning the two Burnaby ridings, as evidenced by his recent visits to the city, but someone in his office seems to have forgotten about the importance of staying in contact with the local press.

Staff at the Burnaby NOW were surprised to learn that Layton had already shown up at a press event at Byrne Creek secondary on Wednesday morning, by the time we received our first formal notice of the event - from another journalist.

Michelle Boudreau, the press liaison for Burnaby-New Westminster candidate Peter Julian, whose riding played host to the leader, said the oversight will definitely not happen again.

"We had nothing to do with it," Boudreau said Wednesday afternoon. "The national office controls all the media, and provincial office controls the local stuff. But next time, I will make absolutely hell-bent sure that you not only get the notice, but that you get it in time."

REGISTER TO VOTE

Now is the time to make sure your name is on the voters' list to be able to cast a ballot in our 39th federal election since Canada became a nation in 1867.

Elections Canada has already started the process of updating its voters' lists, and the public should start receiving their official voter information cards early in the New Year. Anyone who does not receive a card, or who needs to update their information, should get in contact with their local Elections Canada office.

The Burnaby-Douglas Elections Canada office is located at 2150-B Douglas Road, at the corner of the Lougheed Highway.

The Burnaby-New Westminster Elections Canada office is located inside the Burlington Square shopping complex at Suite 270 - 5172 Kingsway, just half a block from the corner with Royal Oak.

For those who might be out of town on election day, advance voting takes place on Jan. 13, 14 and 16, while the deadline for registering as a voter is Jan. 17.

A complete list of candidates for all of the nation's ridings will be available after the formal close of nominations on Jan. 2.

The hours of operation for the local election offices and other information can be obtained by calling the Elections Canada hotline at 1-800-463-6868.

YIU TAKES ON RAYMOND CHAN

Gabriel Yiu may not be running in the federal election, but the former B.C. NDP candidate in Burnaby-Willingdon sure knows how to keep his name in the news.

Yiu garnered B.C.-wide headlines and earned a mention in the national press on Tuesday when he called for a formal apology from Raymond Chan, the Minister of State for Multiculturalism, for alleged 'misstatements' made during a Monday morning interview on CBC Radio.

"During the interview, Raymond Chan repeatedly said I had misled the public," Yiu said in a press release issued Tuesday afternoon. "(Chan) said I was an NDP candidate in this federal election. He condemned me for having lied about the existence of a news headline."

The pair were invited onto the radio show to talk about Prime Minister Paul Martin's recent announcement on the Chinese head tax redress issue.

Yiu, who had lawyer Alastair Rees-Thomas by his side, also alleged that Chan's comments were 'defamation.' According to a Wednesday morning story in the Globe and Mail, Chan just laughed off the criticism.