City riding is key battleground

By Dan Hilborn
Published May 26, 2004


As goes Burnaby, so goes British Columbia.

That's the view from some of the top political pundits in Canada, who see the Burnaby-Douglas riding as a key to Prime Minister Paul Martin's strategy of forming a majority government. And, as a result, the riding has been the focus of a whole lot of media attention in the first two days of the campaign.

Monday's Vancouver Sun newspaper featured photos of both Liberal candidate Bill Cunningham and Conservative hopeful George Drazenovic in the paper's first official look at the 2004 federal election.

The Globe and Mail newspaper described Burnaby-Douglas as one of the five ridings of interest across the country, and The Province newspaper gave coverage to the NDP's Tuesday night nomination meeting between former MLA and city councillor Pietro Calendino and Robinson's longtime constituency assistant Bill Siksay.

"We've always pegged this as a swing riding, even before Svend withdrew," Cunningham said Tuesday morning. "We are quite prepared for a bit of attention. Frankly, we welcome it."

But along with the good comes the bad. And for Cunningham, that means repeated references to the fact that he was handpicked by the prime minister, and not elected at a formal nomination meeting, leaving open the possibility of a rebellion within the Liberal ranks. (See Angry Liberals may enter race.)

Meanwhile, Conservative candidate George Drazenovic is trying to downplay a recent CanWest Global-Compas poll that shows his party leading in B.C. by a comfortable margin.

Drazenovic believes the NDP will still give a strong showing in a riding the party has held for 25 years.

"It's an encouraging poll, but I wouldn't put much stock in it," the Tory said. "The reason I see this election as really exciting is that there's a lot of controversy, such as the Liberal nomination implosion, which we find just amazingly stupid."

Drazenovic knows that his key to victory lies in convincing a good number of people who used to vote for Robinson to cast their ballots for him.

"One thing that's quite evident is people want change," he said. "I talk to a lot of people who would have voted for Svend, because he was an excellent constituent person, but now they're looking for someone different.

"But we're taking the NDP very seriously," Drazenovic said. "They've held this riding for 25 years, two generations - and until they're defeated, I think we have to look at them as the favourite."

Several media outlets are also speculating that the unpopularity of premier Gordon Campbell and the B.C. Liberal Party could be another factor at play in this election.

Cunningham admits he does hear concerns about the provincial government on the doorstep, but he believes voters are sophisticated enough to make the distinction between the federal and provincial parties.