Each election, the North Shore News asks the candidates in every riding to fill out a questionnaire on local issues. Today, we bring you the responses from North Vancouver-Lonsdale candidates. Click here to see our grid.
This is the only one of the North Shore’s four ridings that political strategists consider to be “in play” this election.
Though North Vancouver-Lonsdalites almost always choose a B.C. Liberal to represent them, the margins are often close.
Liberal incumbent Naomi Yamamoto won the seat for a second time in 2013 by a margin of just 4.89 per cent over the NDP’s Craig Keating. The Green Party took almost 10 per cent of the local vote in that election and the B.C. Conservative Party made a small blip at about 3.5 per cent.
Yamamoto is defending her seat against New Democrat Bowinn Ma, Green Party candidate Richard Warrington and Libertarian Donald Wilson. The last time the NDP won the riding was 1991 when David Schreck narrowly beat the Liberals, as well as a Social Credit challenger.
Riding projections compiled by the CBC’s Éric Grenier on April 25 suggest the riding was leaning NDP, but poll watchers should keep a dose of sodium chloride on hand. As 2013 voters will recall, many polling companies were predicting an NDP landslide and the Liberals went on to increase their seat count.
Since the election was called, North Vancouver-Lonsdale has had two campaign stops from NDP leader John Horgan, and one from Liberal leader Christy Clark.
Voter turnout in the riding was just over 60 per cent in 2013, meaning a strong get-out-the-vote effort could be the deciding factor.
Containing many of the fastest growing neighbourhoods of the North Shore, the riding stretches from Park Royal east to the Seymour River, meaning it includes snippets of the District of West Vancouver and the District of North Vancouver, although most of its 18-square kilometres is the City of North Vancouver
Demographics
Population (2014): 57,431
Median age (2011 census): 41.5
The big issues in the riding:
The Economy
Most of the North Shore’s industrial land is within this riding, including a number of Port of Vancouver terminals, which are among the busiest in the world.
Although it’s traditionally home to blue collar and service workers, it’s also increasingly becoming the home of well-to-do downsizers moving into condos cropping up along Lonsdale.
Transportation
Voters in this most centralized North Shore riding are more dependent on transit and may be motivated to vote based on who they feel is going to make their commute easier.
All three parties are committed to covering 40 per cent of the costs of transit expansion, along with the feds, but it is an open question how the mayors will come up with their 20 per cent.
Housing
According to the 2014 Canadian Rental Housing Index, the City of North Vancouver was among the most critical in Canada when it came to rental affordability, overcrowding, overspending, and an overall shortfall of rental housing. And many of the older three-storey walk-ups along Lower and Central Lonsdale are up for redevelopment.
North Vancouver-Lonsdale election results (2009 and 2013)
