With less than a week to go before voters head to the polls, the NDP burger continues to hold top spot in the Burger Heaven burger poll.
As of Monday morning, the John Horgan (NDP) burger was in the lead with 39 per cent of the vote, trailed by the Andrew Weaver (Green) burger at 28 per cent and the Christy Clark (Liberal) burger at 26 per cent. The (b)undecided voter accounts for seven per cent of votes cast at the local eatery.
NDP builds from the ground up in Queensborough
Still on the topic of polls, the NDP is reporting a new poll shows its candidate is leading in the Queensborough-Richmond riding.
Coun. Chuck Puchmayr, who is volunteering on the NDP campaign, said the poll is close, but shows the NDP in the lead.
“I don’t think there’s a Richmond poll that’s led before an election since 1972,” he said. “Even last time when you factored in Queensborough, we still were a ways off. We crunched those numbers. This time, things are changing on the ground.”
As a result of recommendations by the Electoral Boundaries Commission, Queensborough is no longer part of the New Westminster riding. Instead, it’s part of a 93-square kilometre riding.
“It’s basically two areas with cranberry farms and golf courses between us. It’s a huge farm area that is really spacious and then there are the heavy residential areas,” Puchmayr said. “About 20 per cent of it is Queensborough and Hamilton, and the rest of it is still Richmond.”
Because of the size of the riding, the NDP opened a satellite campaign office in Queensborough. NDP candidate Aman Singh is also sharing office space with three other NDP candidates in Richmond.
“It’s very difficult to get volunteers to come all the way from Queensborough to Number 3 and Minoru and vice versa. So we thought that if we had two offices at least we could capture the strength of the Queensborough people and also we wouldn’t be forcing people to come from way over on the other side of the riding into Queensborough,” Puchmayr said. “It seems to be effective. It’s working.”
Along with Coun. Bill Harper, Puchmayr put together an election planning committee for the new riding.
“I tell everybody there is grassroots campaigns, but ours is really dirt and seed,” Puchmayr said. “There was no infrastructure here - when the new boundaries were put in, a lot of the people that worked the Queensborough campaign came from the mainland of New West. We basically had to rebuild everything right from the ground up.”
All about education
New Westminster candidates will be gathering tonight for the final all-candidates meeting of the 2017 provincial election campaign.
The New Westminster Teachers’ Union and the New Westminster Retired Teachers’ Association are hosting an all-candidates meeting on Thursday, May 4th at the New Westminster Secondary School library starting at 7:30 p.m. The focus of the meeting will be public education and post-secondary education.
Tune in to New West TV
If you haven’t had a chance to get out to any of the all-candidates meeting in the 2017 provincial election campaign, you can tune in to New West TV to see the candidates in action.
New West TV attended the New Westminster Chamber of Commerce’s recent all-candidates meeting, which was attended by the local Green, Liberal and NDP candidates. You can now view the meeting at www.newwesttv.
Out of the race
When New Westminster voters head to the polls, they’ll have one fewer names to consider on the ballot.
Eric Skytte filed papers to run as an independent candidate in the riding, but informed the Record he had to withdraw due to some temporary health concerns and was unable put in the effort he wanted to in the campaign.
Thanks for the ticket
The Social Credit candidate in New Westminster was able to attend a recent all-candidates meeting -thanks to the Greens.
Yes in New West and Tenth to the Fraser teamed up to host an all-candidates meeting on housing on April 28 at River Market. Because or liquor laws, people needed to have tickets for the event, which was sold out.
James Crosty, the local Social Credit candidate, didn’t have a ticket to the sold-out event and put out a request on Twitter and at another debate. He also asked members of the local Liberal, Green and NPD campaigns if they had a ticket to spare so he could attend.
“After the debate Naomi (of the Greens) told me they had one,” he said in an email to the Record. “I got the questions the next morning and went to the debate that night. “
