NDP leader Adrian Dix attracted quite a crowd during his recent appearance in the Royal City.
Dix dropped by NDP candidate Judy Darcy's campaign office on Saturday for a barbecue and a chat with volunteers.
"The energy in the room is incredible," Darcy said in a media release. "We sent out a notice that Adrian was coming to town less than 24 hours ago and over 120 people turned out to greet him at my campaign office."
Darcy was thrilled that Dix was able to join her in thanking volunteers for their "incredible work" in her "people-powered" campaign.
Unauthorized website disappears
Now you see it, now you don't. Soon after independent candidate James Crosty complained to Elections B.C. about a website urging people not to support him in the election, the page disappeared from the Internet. Below the smiling photos of former premiers Bill Vander Zalm and Gordon Campbell, and current premier Christy Clark, the caption read: Please, on May 14th, make your vote count. Another friendly face or real change? Say no to James Crosty.
Elections B.C. officials told Crosty the website constituted unauthorized election advertising and initiated action to determine the identity of the sponsor and require transmission of the website cease until the sponsor is registered and the website bears the authorization statement.
Hector Bremner may have the gift of the gab, but he didn't inherit his father's musical skills.
Bremner recently met a man on the campaign trail who remembered his father, Hector Bremner Sr. from his days as a singer in Winnipeg. The elder Bremner's singing credits included hosting the CBC series Hymn Sing in the 1960s.
"I can't sing for the life of me - but I can talk," the younger Bremner laughed.
Brave new world
Campaigning has changed dramatically since Paul Forseth's early forays into elections.
When Forseth first campaigned as a Reform Party of Canada candidate back in 1993, offices relied on phones and fax machines. It's a different world on the campaign front nowadays.
"Parties have got websites. Candidates have to have websites, then they have to be interactive. Now you've got to have a Facebook account, a Twitter account. Your sites have to be interactive. You have to appear to be out there, communicating. The public are less likely to want to answer the door because they are scared or the doors are locked," he said. "Everyone screens their calls when they answer. Fewer and fewer people have landlines."
Darcy's past
NDP candidate Judy Darcy's views on the environment were shaped by her early years in Sarnia, Ontario.
After immigrating to Canada from Denmark as a child, Darcy grew up in the town of Sarnia, which is similar in size to New Westminster and located on Lake Huron. The area, home to many oil refineries, was known as Chemical Valley.
"I did a radio show the summer after Grade 13. It was CHOK radio: 'This is the OK holiday show bringing you the sights and sounds of Lambton County - five miles of tanks, toques and spheres, a fairyland of lights by night or day - Canada's Chemical Valley. That was the opening," Darcy recalls. "When I remember it now, I think oh my God, what a different world we lived in. When the wind blew from the south, from the refineries, everybody choked."
Although the refineries provided jobs, Darcy said they also had a negative impact on people's health and the environment.
"I have seen first hand both the importance of having good jobs in a community that support families, but also the kind of degradation to people's health and the environment that this can do unless you have very strict environmental standards," she said.
Darcy said the experience of growing up in Chemical Valley has influenced her concerns about the environment on a broader level, including concerns about expanding pipelines.
"If you weren't an environmentalist before you lived in B.C., you'd become one because it's like a sacred trust that we have here."
Civil campaign
Independent candidate James Crosty is enjoying the atmosphere surrounding the 2013 provincial election in New Westminster.
Although this is Crosty's first campaign on the provincial front, he ran as a mayoral candidate in the 2011 civic election.
"It's very different than the civic election. The tenor of the campaign is a lot more civil," he said. "I am able to present actual issues, and solutions and concepts. In the civic election, it was a little messier and a little meaner. I think it's much more respectful."
