The Vancouver Scrum

Paul Martin was in town yesterday; I'd considered trying to meet up with his campaign tour. After all, he was swinging through Vancouver, and there was always the chance to get some answers out of him. Martin was running an hour behind schedule as he flitted from retirement home to reseach lab to bun toss, and not answering any questions along the way. So I decided better; I'm pretty sure that Terminal City readers don't give much of a crap about his soundbites. I guessed well; Martin's stopover was so un-newsworthy that it scarcely made the Globe and Mail, while the Vancouver Sun left it to languish on A4 despite a front-page photo of Martin looking through a microscope.

That makes two federal leaders that have swept though British Columbia since the election call came. Jack Layton kicked off his campaign in Vancouver, and may return to British Columbia as often as once a week. (That's not a huge change; Layton has seemingly been in BC every other week since last fall.) Conservative leader Stephen Harper sweeps into Richmond tomorrow, a riding the Conservatives hope to grab from the Liberals who got it through floor-crossing from an Alliance MP who knocked off the Liberal Ray Chan, who's running again for the Liberals. The only thing missing is Gilles Duceppe, but ther's no Ryan Bloc Quebecois Bigge running in Vancouver this time.

It's obvious why the leaders are devoting quite a bit of time to British Columbia. Most of BC's seats are still up for grabs, aside from about ten that the Conservatives will win come Hell, high water, locusts, drought, plague, or even a Slaughter of Holy Innocents. (That's my Catholic education at work, folks!) Conservatives want to hold onto their dominance, and perhaps knock off a Liberal or two just in case they lose their Nanimo seats to the NDP. Before Adscam and a raid on the BC legislature connected to a couple of Liberal operatives, the Liberals were hoping for big gains in B.C. under Paul Martin; now they need to make small gains to hold onto a parliamentary majority. As for the NDP, they're riding a new wave and a backlash against things conservative and Liberal in BC (and especially against conservative Liberals!) They need to win back traditional NDP areas of BC to become a real force in the House.

It means that there'll be plenty of opportunities to confront party leaders in the next month. I can't afford to follow them, so it's good that they've got reason to come here. Even then, the local candidates are often better equipped to answer questions about issues that heavily affect Vancouver: housing, drug addiction, new rapid transit lines, the Olympics, port security, and so on.

When you get down to it, some politician's —even if it is the Prime Minister— canned comments at a Thursday night naan toss aren't really the kind of story my editor or I are looking for. So instead of going through the campaign whistle-stop routine, I turned in early, made some calls, did some research, and got a full night's sleep.

Might be the last one I get for a month.