Charting the Votes in Nanaimo-Cowichan

[Editor's note: This is the latest of a new feature on The Tyee: Charting the Votes. In charts and prose, veteran political analyst Will McMartin breaks down the important factors in key B.C. races.]

Two Vancouver Island electoral districts are hosting unusual tilts in the federal general election now underway, insofar as both ridings have current and former members of Parliament going head-to-head.

Much attention has been given to the battle in Vancouver Island North, where Conservative John Duncan and New Democrat Catherine Bell are having their rubber match. Duncan first won election to the House of Commons in 1993 with Reform, and then held the seat with Reform in 1997, the Canadian Alliance in 2000, and the Conservatives in 2004.

In the latter confrontation, he squeaked past Bell by a mere 483 votes. Then, in 2006, Bell prevailed by 616 ballots. All signs point to another hard-fought brawl this year.

By comparison, very little attention has been lavished on Nanaimo-Cowichan, where New Democrat Jean Crowder is battling former Reform-Canadian Alliance MP Reed Elley.

Perhaps that's because, unlike Vancouver Island North, where Duncan and Bell are having their third consecutive battle, Crowder and Elley are meeting each other for the first time.

Nanaimo backgrounder

A little history. Nanaimo became a federal CCF-NDP bastion in the years following the Second World War. Colin Cameron took the riding in 1953, briefly lost it in the Diefenbaker landslide of 1958, and then held it again -- after the riding was renamed Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands -- from 1962 to 1969.

He then voluntarily retired so as to make the seat available for NDP leader Tommy Douglas, who had been defeated in the 1968 Trudeau sweep. Douglas represented the riding until his retirement from politics in 1979.

The region then was split into two new electoral districts -- Nanaimo-Alberni and Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands -- in anticipation of the 1979 general election. The former riding returned a New Democrat, Ted Miller, while the latter opted for a Progressive Conservative, Don Taylor.

Miller won re-election in 1980, but was upset by Ted Schellenberg, a Tory, in 1984. Taylor lasted a mere nine months, losing to New Democrat Jim Manley in 1980. Manley won re-election in 1984, and then retired four years later.

The Nanaimo and Cowichan area seemed well on its way to becoming a near-impregnable New Democratic Party fortress. Of 15 federal general-election tilts held in the region between 1952 and 1984, the CCF-NDP won a dozen, and the Progressives Conservatives took just three. The Tories, moreover, proved unable to solidify their gains, as each of their MPs lasted but a single term in office.

The 1988 federal general election held great promise for the New Democrats, as they captured all six of Vancouver Island's federal ridings. In the renamed Nanaimo-Cowichan riding, where Tory MP Schellenberg sought to win re-election, former provincial NDP finance minister Dave Stupich was an easy victor.

But NDP dreams were dashed in 1993, when the party lost all six of its Island seats. Coincidentally, a New Democratic Party government had been elected in Victoria just two years earlier. Five of the Vancouver Island ridings held by the New Democrats were lost to challengers with the upstart Reform Party, while Victoria was captured by a Liberal.

In Nanaimo-Cowichan, as the chart above illustrates, Stupich was badly trounced as his vote total collapsed from over 27,000 in 1988, to a paltry 14,000 five years later. The Reform victor was Bob Ringma, a retired general in the Canadian Armed Forces.

Bet on Crowder

Reed Elley was Ringma's campaign manager in the 1993 general election. When the latter retired after a single term in office, Elley, a Baptist minister, stepped in to fill the breach.

He retained the seat in the 1997 general election as a Reform representative, and then won re-election in 2000 with the Canadian Alliance.

On the eve of the 2004 general election, after seven years of service and suffering from poor health, Elley quit politics. His health now restored, he will be facing the woman who succeeded his seat in 2004.

Jean Crowder worked as a human resources consultant with such agencies as Malaspina University College, Human Resources Development Canada and the provincial Ministry of Skills, Training and Labour prior to her 2004 election to the House of Commons.

The timing of her entry into the political arena was fortuitous, insofar as the provincial NDP government had been defeated in 2001. She captured more than 25,000 votes in her first campaign, and then climbed to 28,500 in 2006. Over the same period, her margins of victory rising from 6,300 to 9,000 votes.

Nanaimo-Cowichan seems well on its way to becoming once again a New Democratic Party stronghold, so Crowder should be able to hold her seat on Oct. 14. However, as is the case with NDP candidates elsewhere in British Columbia -- and especially on Vancouver Island and in the Interior -- she will have to be wary of a weakening Liberal vote (some of which will go to the Tories) and a rising Green strength (which should siphon both NDP and Liberal votes).

Still, Crowder should have little difficulty winning re-election.