Calendino versus Lee

By Dan Hilborn
Published Feb. 9, 2005


A pair of longtime political rivals will vie against each other for the third time in eight years when the voters of Burnaby North go to the polls in the May 17 provincial election.

Former MLA Pietro Calendino will face off against B.C. Liberal incumbent Richard T. Lee after he won the NDP nomination by a 220 to 158 margin against B.C. Government and Service Employees' Union organizer Jaynie Clark on Sunday afternoon.

"I've been waiting for this chance," said Calendino, who lost to Lee by 5,000 votes in the 2001 election. "I want to win back the riding."

Calendino, a public school teacher and current member of Burnaby city council, previously won the riding in 1996 when he posted an 800-vote victory over Lee, a former employee of the TRIUMF subatomic research facility at UBC.

But this time around, Calendino believes voters will choose him to help reverse the cutbacks imposed during the past four years of the Gordon Campbell government.

"There's a lot of issues, starting with all the cuts the Liberals have made us suffer with," said Calendino. "We need to restore a lot of the services they've cut, but we need to be fiscally prudent, too. We need to bring environmental issues to the table, and of course we have to make sure the economy keeps moving.

"I have to go door to door to see what people's issue are, but I'm already hearing that you can't get the services at the hospital that you used to, schools and libraries are closed, support staff and teachers for special needs students are laid off, and parents have to fundraise to buy books for libraries and many courses," he said.

And he heaped criticism on his thrice-met rival.

"We've had an invisible and ineffective MLA in Burnaby North for four years," Calendino said. "He's totally absent. People can't get him on the phone, they can't get into his office and they need an appointment to see him. My office was open 12 hours a day when we were there, and we didn't have bars on the doors and windows."

But Lee said voters need only look as far as the booming economy as the main reason for sending him back to Victoria.

"The choice is obvious," Lee said. "The economy is doing so well in B.C. and in Burnaby. We have the lowest unemployment rate in 23 years - it's dropped to 6.1 per cent - and people are quite optimistic about the future and we'll have more resources available for social services."

In terms of his personal accomplishments since his election, Lee pointed to his work with the Burnaby Association for Community Inclusion and his work to strengthen the representation agreement act.

"The changes in the community living act are very positive. We now have self-advocates represented in important decisions, and those are ideas I pushed for," Lee said.

In terms of accessibility, Lee said his office is open five days a week from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., he holds monthly coffee gatherings and spends many hours in the community at public events.

"I hope it's a clean and fair campaign with no personal attacks," Lee said. "But, on the record, people can see what the government has done and that we deserve to be reelected."

And while some critics have pointed to the growing number of male candidates being nominated by the NDP as evidence of a gender gap within the party, that aspect was downplayed by the woman who lost the nomination.

"We're going to rally the troops and make sure we win back Burnaby North," Clark said Monday morning. "Pietro's been in this community for 34 years, he's the previous MLA... For me, this is the first time I've run for anything, so I don't think gender played a role at all."

If there was a gender factor, it would have helped me."