Vancouver byelection campaigns get into gear

With the federal election out of the way, campaign-weary Vancouver voters now face a two-week provincial byelection blitz to fill two seats vacated by MLAs who had other political aspirations.

Premier Gordon Campbell touted the Liberals' high-profile candidates in Vancouver-Burrard and Vancouver-Fairview at a campaign kickoff on Thursday for the Oct. 29 vote.

And with afullprovincial election seven months away, he warned a vote for the New Democrats risks a return to the bad times a decade ago.

"As we move towards May it's about the future of British Columbia," said Campbell.

"Do we want to have a stable economy that continues to build on strengths or do we want to go back, back to the 1990s when our economy was in decline, when people were leaving the province, when people were fearful," he said.

Campbell's Liberals are nearing the end of their second mandate after winning a landslide victory over the scandal-plagued, fiscally challenged two-term NDP government in 2001.

NDP targets carbon tax, social issues

In an event just across trendy Robson Street from the Liberals' rally, NDP Leader Carole James urged voters to send Campbell a message that he was out of touch with ordinary British Columbians on issues such as homelessness, health care, the carbon tax and worry about an economic slump.

"When average people are hurting, what does Gordon Campbell do? He gives his top executives a huge pay raise," she said referring to controversial salary boosts for senior provincial bureaucrats. "That's arrogance and neglect and we're going to send him a message in this byelection."

The NDP aired several short video endorsements from voters in the central city ridings that focused on the core's rising homelessness problem and apparent government indifference to small-business closures on Cambie St. The street was all but shut down for two years during construction of a tunnel fora rapid transit line.

Resignations led to byelections

The Liberalshold 45 seats in the B.C. legislature and the NDP has 32, with two vacancies that spurred the byelection call on Oct. 1.

Liberal Lorne Mayencourt quit his Vancouver-Burrard seat to run unsuccessfully for the Conservatives in Tuesday's federal election.

New Democrat Gregor Robertson resigned in Vancouver-Fairview to campaign for the mayor's job in Vancouver's municipal elections next month.

The NDP is fielding former Vancouver Park Board commissioner Spencer Herbert in Vancouver-Burrard, while community activist and VanCity credit union manager Jenn McGinn is running in Vancouver-Fairview.

The Liberals have put up two high-profile figures. Arthur Griffiths, former owner of the Vancouver Canucks, is running in Vancouver-Burrard and Dr. Margaret MacDiarmid, former president of the B.C. Medical Association, is the party's choice for Vancouver-Fairview.

James said she believes the Liberals are vulnerable on the carbon tax that took effect in July, which adds an escalating charge onto gasoline, diesel and natural gas.

Campbell has promised the levy will be offset by other tax reductions but James said he should take a hint from the drubbing the federal Liberals and their Green Shift carbon tax took in Tuesday's federal election.

"Let's remember that (federal Liberal Leader) Stphane Dion came into British Columbia and called Gordon Campbell a hero," she said. "And we all know that Stphane Dion was the big loser on election night in the federal election."