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 Burnaby North-Seymour Candidates. Click here to see our election grid.
It's a blank slate as far as electoral ridings go, and the parties and the pundits are all keeping a very close eye on Burnaby North-Seymour.
In order to make sure each riding had roughly the same number of residents, the electoral boundaries commission redrew the borders of the old North Vancouver and Burnaby-Douglas ridings in 2012.
If the 2011 election were held using today's riding boundaries, the Tories would have won with 44.2 per cent of the vote with the NDP taking 35.2 per cent. The Liberals took only 15.7 percent in the scenario and the Green Party, 3.9 per cent. Transpositions from the 2011 general election show the riding's polling stations in Seymour almost all went Tory blue. The Burnaby side, which makes up about 70 per cent of the total population in the riding, was far more NDP friendly.
But that was then and this is now. Party insiders say they are treating this one as a three-way race. Poll aggregator Eric Grenier's threehundredeight.com indicates there is only a 3.5-point spread between the three major parties, with the Liberals holding a narrow lead.
For those who claim no major party represents them, voters will also be able to mark their X next to a Communist, a Libertarian, a Marxist-Leninist and an independent candidate.
The riding has a diverse makeup of residents, 39 per cent of whom identify as immigrants, according to Statistics Canada. The median age is 40.8 years. The average household income in 2010 was $85,288, although the North Vancouver side likely skews the numbers higher. The riding is also home to the 500-member Tsleil-Waututh Nation. The riding is unusual in that, despite where voters stand on an array of issues, there's likely one local issue that's going to be on their minds in the ballot booth, according to Doug McArthur, Simon Fraser University political science prof. "I think the obvious issue, and I think it is an important one in this election, is a local one. This has to do with the Kinder Morgan pipeline and what the likely possibilities are of this and what the parties will do in terms of their stand on the Kinder Morgan pipeline, on what kind of conditions would they accept or reject the pipeline," McArthur said. "I think it's a pretty important debate that's taking place and people are trying to make up their minds on how best to vote consistent with what they'd like to see happen.... It's a bit unusual in federal elections to have something quite that prominent stand out."
Expect the winner of Burnaby North-Seymour to be having a good night overall, McArthur said. "In my books, it's one of these bellwether seats.... It's one of those seats that, looking back, we'll say 'Oh, the way that seat went is a pretty good indicator of how the larger situation went.'"
This story has been edited since it was originally posted. It now contains the 2011 election transposition results for the Green Party.
