By-elections tend to be low-key affairs, but lessons drawn from next week’s two votes could shape strategies for May’s big dance. And one of these mini-referenda is taking place in a district that’s about as green as they come.
“I would suspect there are probably more environmentalists per capita living in Vancouver-Fairview than maybe in the rest of Canada,” according to Kennedy Stewart, a political scientist in Simon Fraser University’s Graduate Public Policy Program. “So it’ll be really interesting to see where the environment fits in this whole by-election.”
Stewart says the two major parties may be reluctant to talk about the issue because the Liberals realize their carbon tax is unpopular and the NDP have not come up with a solid alternative.
“I think that’s going to be a theme right through until the next provincial election,” he said. “The Greens are going to consistently try to keep the environment as the top issue where the other two parties are going to try to scurry away from the environment.”
While the predictive power of by-election results is usually limited because of low turnout, next week’s contests could be significant as the first and only public consultations on the carbon tax before the province-wide vote, according to Mario Canseco, vice president of public affairs for Angus Reid Strategies.
“It’s almost like a test run,” Canseco said. “If the NDP does well with their message of punish polluters, do something with the industry and axe the tax, we might be in for something interesting in May.”
Stewart doesn’t think the NDP’s opposition to the carbon tax will play well in a wealthy, short-commute district like Vancouver-Fairview but believes disgruntled supporters are more likely to stay home than defect in huge numbers to the Greens.
Canseco expects the Greens to exceed their single-digit share of the popular vote from 2005 but would be surprised by anything more than 15 to 20 percent, even with party leader Jane Sterk as the Vancouver-Fairview candidate.
As for the impact of increased Green votes, Stewart says it’s difficult to know which of the two major parties will suffer most. Most support tends to come from people who wouldn’t otherwise engage in the process but it depends from riding to riding.
Both Kennedy and Canseco think the Liberals are likely to take back the seat they lost in 2005 to Gregor Robertson who is now running for Vancouver mayor.
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Luke Skywalker
3 years ago
A Historical Ground-Breaker
And if that happens, that would be historical, in the sense that no incumbent government has taken a seat, in a by-election, from the opposition post-WW2 IIRC.
Carole is then gonna be in big political trouble in the short lead-up to May, 2009 on many political fronts.
David Lewis
3 years ago
"green" debate
"the two major parties may be reluctant to talk about the issue because the Liberals realize their carbon tax is unpopular and the NDP have not come up with a solid alternative"
I wonder. Carole James is still shouting from every rooftop she can find that the carbon tax has to go. It was the most prominent sound bite she was serving up in the media spotlight surrounding Campbell's recent economic speech.
As she continues on with this, now that gas prices are plummeting, she might be surprised one day and find that people want a bit more information.
The Liberals look like they are trying to do a bit more than is politically possible on a vital issue, while the NDP cast into stone their reputation as opportunistic climate dinosaurs.
I suggest the NDP study up on the "cap and trade" they say they stand for. They'll find that the system can result in windfall profits for big polluters, and it can be described as a system for big polluters to put off taking action. It can be tweaked, but doubts remain. After disappointing results so far in the EU they are looking forward to getting some results with it. I hope they do achieve some success. It was Clinton who forced it into the Kyoto Protocol. The EU went for it after running into the political problems of putting a carbon tax in.
Campbell's approach, which is carbon tax AND cap and trade (look up the Western Climate Initiative) can be criticized, but if you ask people who have been waiting for action on this file for twenty years no matter what their political affiliation is you'll find that the main critique is that Campbell doesn't go far enough. Given how unpopular the carbon tax has proven to be, I'd say Campbell has done the best he could.
more discussion from Australian radio:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/rearvision/stories/2008/2367863.htm
egmont rapids
3 years ago
We will see
If anyone thinks that the only issue hurting the BC Liberals is the carbon tax is fooling themselves.
Up scale area or not, people are hurting,Campbells policies will be hurting the up-scale too.
Only one group of voters will be interested in making a statement and PREDICTION!
Don`t think it will be close,one way or another.
Budd Campbell
3 years ago
URBAN POPULISM
Stewart doesn’t think the NDP’s opposition to the carbon tax will play well in a wealthy, short-commute district like Vancouver-Fairview ...
...
Both Kennedy and Canseco think the Liberals are likely to take back the seat they lost in 2005 to Gregor Robertson who is now running for Vancouver mayor.
After the federal election, Michael Byers campaign manager Am Johal stated that the Liberal Green Shift versus Layton's cap and trade did not help Byers, since most West End residents who support carbon taxes went to the Greens.
Support for carbon taxes among urban apartment dwellers can be pictured as progressive thinking. Or it could more realistically be called urban populism, that is, I have no problem with taxes I won't pay but others in the suburubs and rural areas will pay.
It's an extension of the thinking that goes on around the Gateway project. Downtown and midtown voters tend to be quite vocal in their opposition to the PMH1 project, which doesn't come five kilometres of their homes. They reject helping to pay for additional highway infrastructure that will assist in the economic development of the Fraser Valley, but are not shy about expecting taxpayers in the Fraser Valley, and for that matter across BC and even across Canada, to help pay for expensive projects like the RAV line. In a way, their positioning sounds rather like David Dingwall, "I am entitled to my entitlements".
A final point. If Fairview goes Liberal, does this not imply a double win for the BC Liberals, given that the Burrard seat was already in their column?
Budd Campbell
3 years ago
David Lewis: Do you have a source?
I suggest the NDP study up on the "cap and trade" they say they stand for. They'll find that the system can result in windfall profits for big polluters, and it can be described as a system for big polluters to put off taking action. It can be tweaked, but doubts remain.
David, I have not heard this before. Do you have a source?
seth
3 years ago
A green vote is a Campbell vote
Thank you David Suzuki, Andrew Weaver.
Instead of correctly denouncing Gordo's green tax as a cynical redistribution of taxpayers money to Campbell's big corporate campaign donators, you instead praised it giving all those "low information" green voters the go ahead to vote for one of the most environmentally destructive governments in the western world.
Can either of you two you say "fish farms"
Will the Greens once again elect Gordon Campbell.
Budd Campbell
3 years ago
seth: They can say "fish farms" but they can't do anything
You raise an excellent point, seth.
The official greens in BC have been mesmerized by the carbon tax policy. It renders them incapable of serious movement on any other environmental issue. They make a totalizing argrument that climate change is the biggest environmental issue of all, therefore it's the only one that counts politically.
By the time they realize what they have done, it will be too late. I would confidently predict that by 2015 most of the now well-known green NGOs in BC will be either defunct or merged into new organizations with new names and new leaders. That's because President Obama will provide serious leadership in terms of a genuine international cap and trade system, and when he does, the American economists and climate scientists will stop talking carbon tax as an essential measure. With no intellectual support for the position that it MUST be a carbon tax coming from south of the border, the Canadian advocates of this position will soon find themselves out of gas, intellectually speaking.