BC Elections 2009 – Vancouver Districts and Candidates
byLast fall if you lived downtown or in the Fairview area, you went to the polls three times for the provincial by-election, federal and civic elections. Now BC is in full provincial election mode for May 12, 2009. Here’s a quick rundown of information for Vancouverites and in particular, those downtown.
The electoral districts for downtown Vancouver have changed as what used to be “Vancouver-Burrard” is now “Vancouver False Creek” and “Vancouver West End”. You can learn more about the new districts and compare them to 2005 on the CBC’s B.C. Votes site.
Vancouver-False Creek (VFC)
Map – Vancouver-False Creek
Damian Kettlewell [Website] [Facebook]
Ray Lam [Website] — recently stepped down
Mary McNeil [Website]
Vancouver-West End (VNW)
Map – Vancouver-West End
Laura McDiarmid [Website]
Spencer Herbert [Website] [Twitter]
Drina Read [Website] [Twitter]
As for the rest of the city, electoral districts for the 2009 provincial elections include:
Vancouver-Fairview (VFA)
Map – Vancouver-Fairview – Candidates
Vancouver-Fraserview (VFV)
Map – Vancouver-Fraserview – Candidates
Vancouver-Hastings (VHA)
Map – Vancouver-Hastings – Candidates
Vancouver-Kensington (VKE)
Map – Vancouver-Kensington – Candidates
Vancouver-Kingsway (VKI)
Map – Vancouver-Kingsway – Candidates
Vancouver-Langara (VLA)
Map – Vancouver-Langara – Candidates
Vancouver-Mount Pleasant (VMP)
Map – Vancouver-Mount Pleasant – Candidates
Vancouver-Point Grey (VNP)
Map – Vancouver-Point Grey – Candidates
Vancouver-Quilchena (VNQ)
Map – Vancouver-Quilchena – Candidates
I’m hoping to do a few interviews like I did during the by-election [1][2][3] and in particular once again with Spencer Herbert who was elected in the fall (current Official Opposition Critic for Arts and Culture) and is the NDP candidate for Vancouver-West End.
You can get up to the minute information about all aspects of the political race on The Tyee or on one of the new election sites that has popped up in the last few weeks – Support the Vote (also on Twitter), BC Vote (Twitter), and Vote Smart BC (although this particular site is not neutral – as you can tell from its feature game where you race a Fast Ferry).
Elections BC is also on Facebook and word is that 52 candidates for the provincial election are all on Twitter. You can track them down thanks to this spreadsheet (hat tips to Ryan Speed @unclespeedo).
In case everyone is electioned-out there are still a few items of note so far during this race such as NDP candidate Ray Lam recently pulling out due to “racey” Facebook photos that have surfaced from his private account [CBC]. Also, as today is 4/20, it’s worth noting that the BC Marijuana Party leader Marc Emery told The Tyee that the party may no longer exist after this spring’s election. “It’s quite possible I’ll fold the B.C. Marijuana party and put my energy into the B.C. Greens after this election.”
One more thing I’ll also try to do is explain the BC-STV referendum within the next few days but for now, the CBC’s site has a little video that you can watch.
Make sure you’re registered to vote and if you’re away or unable to make it to the polls May 12th there are also several days of advanced polling May 6-9th from 8:00am until 8:00pm. Check your personal election guide for more details.
Update: I will be conducting several interviews so if you have any questions for the candidates please feel free to leave them in the comments and I’ll do my best to see if they can address them at that time.
Update: My candidate interviews can be found here.
Update: Election night coverage on the CBC’s site is pretty great in terms of results on their interactive map or you can check in on the official Elections BC site.
9 Comments — Comments Are Closed
Is anybody else wondering why that electoral district extends so far out into Burrard Inlet?
thanks for the good links Rebecca
I went over @unclespeedo ‘s great list of BC MLA’s on twitter.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pZ8t_eRZ5cLlyczgIbCOjcA
I was surprised to say a lot of them didn’t even mention which party they were running for in their profiles. Some didn’t even list their city let alone their riding name. One person’s last tweet was in February.
The vast majority were one way advertising accounts. I, I, I, I, etc. Very antisocial in a social media platform, no @’s, no responses. Kinda sad that many still don’t get social media. It’s not a place to be antisocial.
The leaders of all 3 political parties twitter accounts are just one way ads, no interaction at at all. Guess lack of leadership flows from the top.
I hope some of the candidates will talk about whether or not they’ll support the 8 policy recommendations by the BC medical association’s ADHD policy paper that was released in February
http://bit.ly/cGVQi
Adults and children with ADHD in BC have been ignored for too long. Hopefully some of them will start contacting their potential MLA’s to see if they support the 8 recommendation or not and get a better answer than “we’ll study it” which is usually politician speak for “we’ll really ignore it but I’m afraid to tell you that until the election is over.”
I live in Fairview, too bad we don’t get the day off for election day. :p
I think an interesting line of questioning would be surrounding STV. We already know the parties’ particular stance, but there’s lots of unexplored implications – in particular, with STV support in young voters somewhere around 75%, how does opposition to the measure jibe with the parties trying to motivate young people to vote? Will they commit to rapid implementation if STV passes?
“When will you institute Doughnut Day?”
Rebecca: I second the nomination that you ask MLA candidates where they stand on the BC-STV referendum. Two of the three major parties appear to be trying to duck the issue, which strikes me as a cop-out. (The Greens are vocally pro-BC-STV.)
I find the Straight is also a good place to get local election info not covered elsewhere – their “Straight Slate” which they usually publish the week before the election, suggests who you should vote for in each Metro Vancouver riding which helps if you haven’t been keeping up to date with the candidates & the issues. In the last BC election in 2005, they picked Gregor Robertson for Vancouver Fairview – http://www.straight.com/article/the-straight-slate-0
[…] *Not in anyway liberal. 1I’ve actually jumped out of the frying pan into the fire in that respect, having moved from Gordo’s riding into an even more staunchly right-wing riding where the incumbent BC Liberal* candidate won a strong majority of the vote. 2Props to Rebecca who had a link to this on her blog. […]
BC politics is disgustingly corrupted by nefarious interests, just like the rest of Canada. Zionist Autocrats CanWest own the major papers and global TV, so you notice Campbell isn’t hounded over things like drunk driving and selling off the public trust.
Campbell represents corporate takeover, James represents who knows what, the greens are just fascists, and they all swim in a Zionist media-scape where they can’t mention the controlling factor that makes all of them into Shabaz Goi caricatures.
The Zionist stranglehold has perverted language itself, as ‘Zionist’ is now a word that must not be mentioned.
Carole James says it’s unacceptable to mention the word ‘Zionist’:
http://www.straight.com/article-209187/mable-elmore-controversy-over-zionism-truly-embarrassing