Friday, October 10, 2008

Tories lose riding association member in marginal riding

http://www.canada.com/surreynow/news/story.html?id=acf823cd-da3e-4f70-84a6-3e7f1e3d4b8d

With any Liberal drop in BC seemingly have stopped, this is further good news for the Liberals on the left coast. Support in a tight riding like Fleetwood-Port Kells can be fluid, but this defection is no mere volunteer:

Gill, who holds several university degrees, said he joined the Conservative Party three years ago and became a member of a multicultural committee that passed along concerns of the local ethnic community to the party leadership.

That Gill was an active and loyal member for 3 years doesn't fit with the local Conservative spin on this one. Look for the Liberals to make a big play for this swing riding.

EDIT: http://communities.canada.com/shareit/blogs/thetrough/archive/2008/10/10/oh-surrey-what-can-t-you-do.aspx
Well this got more interesting. Turns out Gill was the Vice-President of the riding (so definitely not just some volunteer) and one reason he gave for his turn to the Liberals was "the disrespectful treatment" given to Dion in regards to the Conservatives shameful response to the CTV video. So the backlash begins, as predicted by several pundits.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great Post! Thanks for the links.

WesternGrit said...

We are... It's in play. South Asian community is pretty irked with Nina Grewal (Conservative incumbent) right now... She's going to pay at the polls... All because she'd rather be an opportunist, than stay with the party that she and her husband first attempted to run for (yes, when her husband, Gurmant, couldn't get the Liberal nomination, they easily won the Reform one). It was all about opportunism for Ms. Grewal and her husband. Running under the flag of a party whose members wouldn't vote for her under any other banner...

ottlib said...

Yep. There are alot of people out there whose first language is not English and not all of them live in Quebec.

I am certain many of them are not too pleased with Mr. Harper's over-the-top reaction to that interview.