THE riding of West Vancouver Capilano includes some of the choicest real estate in the Lower Mainland, from Ambleside waterfront to the British Properties, Edgemont Village and even a chunk of upper Lonsdale.
It's an affluent area, where 74 per cent of the residents own their own homes. In a place where the benchmark price for a detached house hovers around $1.7 million, that's saying something.
Household income in the riding is around $114,000 a year - about double the B.C. average. It's a white-collar area, dominated by professionals and business managers.
It's also a rapidly aging riding. According to the 2006 census, more than 20 per cent of the riding is over 65. The 2011 census ranked West Vancouver as a whole as the 12th oldest area in B.C. with more than 25 per cent of the population 65 or older.
Not surprisingly, West Vancouver-Capilano's older, richer demographic have made it one of the safest Liberal seats in the province, according to many pundits.
"It's one of the few areas of the province where the B.C. Liberals are retaining support," said political commentator and retired political science professor Norman Ruff, who isn't predicting any upsets on election night in this riding.
"It's about income," said David Laycock, professor of political science at Simon Fraser University. "It's a classic example of how higher income individuals in a polarized party system are going to support the centre right."
In the last provincial election, Liberal MLA Ralph Sultan cruised to victory with 67 per cent of the votes cast - one of the highest percentages of popular vote in the province.
Liberals, including Ralph Sultan and the late Jeremy Dalton, have held the seat since 1991, following the collapse of the Social Credit Party.
About 58 per cent of the 39,000 eligible voters turned out to cast ballots in the last election.
Ralph Sultan B.C. Liberal Party
Veteran MLA Ralph Sultan has held the seat for the Liberals since 2001. He was recently promoted to cabinet as minister of state for seniors and minister of advanced education.
Sultan says he's running for election again because he enjoys the job and is good at it.
He's also running because, "I dread the possibility of the NDP governing this province" - not that he thinks his own party is perfect. Sultan says he was in favour of the HST, but points to the way the tax was explained and implemented as a political debacle. "It was good policy, terrible politics," he says.
But beyond that controversy, Sultan says, "This government has gotten the basics right." The Liberals have lowered taxes significantly, he says, making B.C. a desirable place to invest in. Sultan acknowledges the provincial debt has risen, but points to much of that as going to finance infrastructure.
Bringing in all-day kindergarten was a "master stroke" of the government, he says.
Sultan says he's working to make sure the Liberals get re-elected to government. But if they don't and he remains an MLA, Sultan says he can still be an effective voice for his riding. "I've been on the backbench so long, I know what it's like to be on the outside."
Terry Platt B.C. New Democratic Party
Perennial NDP hopeful Terry Platt says she's running again in West Vancouver-Capilano because she loves politics and wants to give people a choice on the ballot.
"I'm there to give people a choice. An actual choice," says Platt, a B.C. Ferries worker and longtime West Vancouver resident.
This will be the third time Platt has put her name forward for the NDP provincially in West Vancouver, in addition to running once as a federal candidate.
Platt says she's running "because I am a strong believer in the NDP core values - equality of the person, dignity and working together."
"It is assumed, not always correctly, that everyone who lives here is rolling in bucks," she says. But that's not true for everyone, she says.
Platt agrees that current MLA Ralph Sultan is "well respected."
"He's got more common sense in his pinky that the whole B.C. Liberal Party does."
But she says her party can do better.
Despite garnering less than 15 per cent of the vote last time, Platt says she's not giving up and is taking her challenge seriously.
"There are a lot of people in West Vancouver-Capilano who are saying 'Hey, hold on a second here, it's time for a change.'" David Jones.
B.C. Conservatives
David Jones, the Conservative candidate in West-Vancouver Capilano, said he's running because he wants to do something about issues he cares about. "I can choose to sit back and complain or I can choose to do something about it," he says.
Jones would like to develop industries like high tech in the province so as to not be so reliant on resource extraction and low-paying service-sector employment. He'd like to see a more stable economy and a more streamlined tax system.
His party is proposing to balance the budget in the next fiscal year, he says. "There is no phantom income, there is no liquidation of assets to achieve it."
"Don't spend what you don't have," is a philosophy that resonates with Jones.
At 44, Jones is also concerned with the plight of young people. "Most parties don't have under-45s on their radar, because they don't vote," he said.
But that demographic is losing ground more rapidly than older generations, he said. On the North Shore, "some of them are stuck in their parents' houses because they can't afford to live anywhere else." He would like to see $10/day childcare in the province.
Active in his Conservative riding association for the past 17 years, Jones has volunteered for the Coho Festival and runs a design-build company, Magellan.
Michael Markwick Independent
Michael Markwick, a professor in the school of communication at Capilano University, says he's running for election because his involvement in a variety of social issues has "made it unavoidable for me to run.
"I'm running out of necessity," says Markwick, who says too many people feel the issues facing the province are too big and too intimidating to tackle.
Markwick says he'd like to change that by encouraging people to get engaged again in the democratic process.
Markwick says it's important for him to run as an independent, despite the uphill battle he faces. He cites the example of independent MLA Vicki Huntington as an inspiration. "She's shown the possibility of an MLA who is there just for the constituency," he says.
"I couldn't be responsive to the needs of our constituency if I was under the leash of a party leader."
Markwick says he's an economic conservative but is concerned about social issues like homelessness. "There are students coming to university who are living in their vans," he says.
More importantly, says Markwick, he'd like to see the community set the agenda for their politicians. "I don't believe the government should be doing things for us. I believe they should be doing things with us," he says.
Tunya Audain Libertarian
Tunya Audain has run as a Libertarian at provincial, federal and municipal levels for the past 40 years.
Other parties all endorse "big central government," says Audain. "They want government control, government power."
Libertarians reject that, she says, believing in "independence of the individual, independence of business and of charity" and as little government regulation as possible.
Fundamentally, "We don't believe in redistributing income through the welfare state," says Audain.
"People are being enslaved and made dependent on government. They just accept we're going to have all of these freebies."
Audain says she's seen a big transition from the days when she was young, when she says more people were self-sufficient and didn't lean on government. "I'm really concerned about the young people," she says. "They don't know what it means to struggle and be self-sufficient. They don't even know what a balanced budget is."
Audain says private health care should be allowed for those who want to buy it. She'd also like to see more private education options for families to choose from, with funding following the students.
North Vancouver-Seymour profile runs Wednesday, April 24
