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Charting the Votes for Hedy Fry

Vancouver Centre's Grit incumbent faces strong foes -- and the Dion factor.

Will McMartin 6 Oct 2008TheTyee.ca

Veteran political analyst Will McMartin is a Tyee contributing editor.

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

It's just one of 36 federal ridings in British Columbia, yet Vancouver Centre usually gets an inordinate amount of news-media attention in general election campaigns.

In part that's due to the high-profile, politically or socially prominent candidates who frequently contest the riding. And that is especially true in the 2008 general election, as at least three well-known challengers have come forward with bids to knock off the five-term incumbent, Liberal MP Hedy Fry.

Fry's rivals in the current campaign include Lorne Mayencourt, formerly the B.C. Liberal MLA for Vancouver-Burrard, who resigned his provincial seat to run federally as a Conservative; Michael Byers, a University of B.C. political science professor representing the New Democrats; and Adriane Carr, the Green gadabout who is making her fourth bid in seven years for a provincial or federal seat.

Fry ran strong in past four elections

Despite having what might charitably be described as a mediocre record in office, Fry -- a physician and one-time president of the B.C. Medical Association -- has enjoyed a virtual lock on Vancouver Centre since 1993. That was the year she upset Kim Campbell, the riding's incumbent Progressive Conservative MP and then Canada's first female prime minister.

The newcomer got 20,095 votes in that contest, almost 4,000 ahead of runner-up Campbell. Fry's share of the popular vote was just under one in three, although that low figure can be explained by the 13-candidate field that featured relatively strong showings by the Liberal (31.1 per cent), Progressive Conservative (25.2 per cent), Reform (17.4 per cent), NDP (15.2 per cent) and National Party (8 per cent) candidates.

Over the last four general elections, Fry has garnered votes from better than two of every five Vancouver Centre voters: 40.8 per cent in 1997, 42.3 per cent in 2000, 40.3 per cent in 2004, and 43.8 per cent in 2006.

Her smallest margin of victory, 4,230 votes, was in 2004; the other contests saw her twice finish ahead of her rivals by more than 9,300 votes, and once by over 8,600.

Interestingly, no single party over the last decade and a half has provided Fry's greatest competition. After Campbell, the Progressive Conservative leader, finished second in 1993, the closet challenger four years later was a Reform candidate, engineer Richard Farbridge. (Bill Siksay, now a NDP MP in Burnaby-Douglas, finished third in the 1997 contest.)

A Canadian Alliance candidate, businessman John Mortimer, was runner-up in 2000, a New Democrat, SFU Prof. Kennedy Stewart, got support from nearly one-in-three Vancouver Centre voters in 2004.

Two years ago, Fry handily trounced Svend Robinson, the veteran NDP parliamentarian, by more than 15 percentage points.

Down to the wire

Given her successful track record over the last 15 years, Fry must be favoured to retain the seat in the current general election. However, she faces the possibility of being dragged down by the Liberals' feeble national campaign and under-whelming performance of party leader Stephane Dion. Fry could probably win with anything greater than 35 per cent of the vote; any less and her seat is in jeopardy.

Over the last two general elections, the NDP vote-share in Vancouver Centre has averaged about 30 per cent, the Conservatives have held roughly 20 per cent, and the Greens have garnered less than seven percent.

Should Fry's vote-share tumble into the low 30s, the New Democrats appear best positioned to win the riding. However, with recent public opinion polls showing Tory strength on the upswing in B.C., it's possible that the Conservatives could prevail in a tight three-cornered contest. A Green victory, to put it kindly, is a longshot.

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