Races are heating up in the city

By Dan Hilborn
Published Oct. 16, 2004


Election fever is heating up in Burnaby as a quartet of well- known figures from local politics and the labour movement are stepping forward to run under the NDP banner in the upcoming provincial election.

City councillor and former NDP MLA Pietro Calendino, BCGEU director Jaynie Clark, coffee shop owner David Myles and former B.C. Yukon Trades Council executive director Tom Sigurdson have all filed NDP nomination papers in recent weeks.

Clark and Calendino are vying for the nomination in the Burnaby North riding, while Sigurdson and Myles are seeking the nomination in Burnaby-Willingdon.

Calendino said his decision to try and regain the seat in Burnaby North was sparked by the repeated requests he's received from people in the community and his own disagreement with the current government's handling of the province's affairs.

"I think it is really incredible what this government is doing," said Calendino, a junior secondary teacher in Delta. "Things are going from bad to worse. People are worried about the direction our health care and education is going, the closing down of hospital beds and the fact that jobs are practically nonexistent for young people."

Calendino does not believe that his loss in the 2001 election will be factor in the upcoming vote.

"The last election, they could have put anybody there and I would have lost," he said. "It was just a wave against the NDP - a great media campaign against the government. We had 98 per cent of us lose, so it wasn't a vote against me, it was a vote for changing the government."

He is also concerned about the selloff of Crown corporations and the laying off of government workers.

But to earn the nomination, Calendino will have to get past one of the best known women's organizers in the B.C. labour movement. Clark, who served as campaign manager for rookie NDP MP Bill Siksay this summer, said she is hoping to bring some new enthusiasm to the riding.

"I felt I had to step up and put my money where my mouth is," said Clark, who announced her candidacy Thursday afternoon. "For years, I've been encouraging women to run for politics because I believe strongly that women need to be involved at the table where people are making decisions about our lives, our children's lives and our communities," Clark said.

A single mother, Clark recently moved into Burnaby, where she works as the director of advocacy, staff development and labour relations at the BCGEU. She said her job, which includes negotiating with the BCGEU's own unionized employees, has helped to develop the skills necessary to be a productive member of the legislature.

"I'm used to high stress, multitasking and balancing big budgets," she said.

meanwhile, the nomination race in Willingdon will feature two nominees with connections to the labour movement: David Myles, a longshoreman who may be better known as the owner of a coffee house in South Burnaby; and Tom Sigurdson, a former executive director of the B.C. Yukon Building and Construction Trades Council who served two terms as a MLA in Alberta.

Myles, who also ran in the 2001 election, said he is seeking the nomination again out of concern for the well-being of the less fortunate in our society.

"One area that really bothers me is the degree of poverty in the community," said Myles, who serves on the Burnaby Interagency Council. "Back, when the NDP was in power, poverty was at 25 or 26 per cent, but now over 30 per cent of the people in Burnaby live in poverty.

"I've seen firsthand that Gordon Campbell and the Liberal policies have created a lot of misery for people by doing things like closing the courthouse and Saint Mary's Hospital in New Westminster," Myles said. "They didn't have to do a lot of the things they did."

Sigurdson said one of his main concerns will be reinstating the apprenticeship training programs that have been "eviscerated" by the B.C. Liberals.

"There are a number of programs that were set up by working people and their organizations over many decades and campbell came in and went after them," Sigurdson said. "He made amendments to the pensions programs that building trades and other organizations had set up, he went after the labour code that dealt primarily with construction, and he eviscerated the apprenticeship training act and that hurt young people."

Like the other nominees, Sigurdson sounds like he is ready to run the election already.

"I think working families have to ask whether or not they feel better off today than they did in 2001 when Campbell was elected," he said. "For me the answer is no, obviously they're not."

Nominating meetings for the Willingdon and Burnaby North ridings are not expected to take place until early next year. Former farmworkers union president Raj Chouhan will run against former Simon Fraser health region chair Paul McDonell for the NDP nomination in Burnaby-Edmonds on Nov. 21.

In the Burquitlam riding, truck driver and former NDP candidate Bart Healey is the only declared candidate so far.

Over the summer, each of the city's four MLAs - Patty Sahota in Edmonds, Harry Bloy in Burquitlam, John Nuraney in Willingdon and Richard Lee in North - were nominated to run again for the B.C. Liberal party.