Burnaby results disappoint city's NDP

By Dan Hilborn
Published May 21, 2005


While the New Democratic Party of B.C. regained its footing and won back many of its former political strongholds across the province on Tuesday night, there was no such resurgence in Burnaby.

The fact the NDP won only one of the four seats in a city that was once considered a bastion of the left wing in the Lower Mainland has sent a wake-up call to party organizers.

Patrice Pratt, the campaign organizer of Gabriel Yiu's unsuccessful run in the Burnaby-Willingdon riding and a former president of the B.C. NDP, said the demographics of the city are changing, and the public's apparent loss of interest in politics is having an adverse effect on their chances.

"The demographics have changed," Pratt said Thursday morning. "We are becoming a little Yaletown. When you look at Metrotown with its new apartments and condos, there is an interesting group of people who choose to live in that urban development.

"They are people who often have cellphones and no land line, and they are inaccessible as far as a politics is concerned. You can't get a hold of those folks."

Overall, Pratt said the NDP phone canvassers in Willingdon were only able to make contact with about 25 per cent of the voters in the urbanized riding. Compounded by a low voter turnout and the presence of a wild-card candidate such as Democratic Reform B.C. deputy leader Tony Kuo - whose 904 votes was more than double the margin of victory for the eventual winner, Liberal John Nuraney - and Pratt said the party may have a tough road ahead to regain its former status.

"Burnaby in the past has been a working-class neighbourhood. People would move here when they couldn't afford Vancouver," she said. "But that's not the case anymore. Now those people are moving to Surrey, and look at how well we (the NDP) did in Surrey.

"But we still have to find out what happened in Burnaby. Saying we lost ground is one way of putting it, but having no contact is another description of what happened.

"But at this point it's all speculation. We have to figure out how to get to voters in the 21st century. Perhaps we need figure out a text messaging system or how to operate with cellphones."

Meanwhile, at city hall, NDP-affiliated mayor Derek Corrigan said he was also surprised by the party's inability to win more than one seat in Burnaby.

"Of course it's a disappointment," said Corrigan, who is now the longest continually serving NDP politician in the city.

"I certainly was supportive of the candidates running for the NDP, and I had been disappointed by the lack of action on behalf of the city by the Liberal MLAs.

"But, that being said, Burnaby is a bellwether riding, and in all four constituencies, they generally reflect the trend in electing the government. So it's not particularly surprising to me that Burnaby would have fallen onto the side of the government when they carry a fairly significant majority of the overall vote."

One positive factor for the NDP was the return of its volunteers, the mayor said.

"Many of the people who left the NDP came back, and they came back in force. That was the real bright light in this campaign," Corrigan said. "But it was clear to me that the Liberals had the NDP outgunned financially by a significant amount.

"And the most disappointing thing to me was the incredibly biased media coverage, particularly by the Sun and The Province," said Corrigan, who noted that he cancelled his subscription to the morning tabloid because of its election coverage.

And despite the disappointments on the provincial scene, the NDP is still well represented at all other levels of government in Burnaby. Both of the city's members of Parliament, plus eight of nine seats at city council and six of seven seats on the school board, are currently filled by card-carrying members of the NDP.