About Nanaimo

   Nanaimo, an unassuming city on Vancouver Island mostly known to those of us who do not live there for being a ferry terminal connecting us to the delights and horrors of Vancouver, has been in the international news recently. 

   Naturally, they like the attention, particularly the new Mayor, Leonard Krog, who hasn’t had this much attention since he was a government cabinet minister some 20 years ago.

   The first splash of notoriety, a story covered by all the major news sources, emerged this spring, when Canada Post issued a series of postage stamps celebrating famous Canadian desserts: butter tart, tart au sucre,  blueberry grunt, saskatoon berry pie, and, of course, our favourite, the Nanaimo bar. 

   This turned into a kerfuffle, and hence became newsworthy, when people actually familiar with Nanaimo bars noticed that the proportions were all wrong. 

   So what does the image on the stamp look like? It looks like a slice of cheesecake, that’s what, and that’s not the Nanaimo bar we on this coast know.

   Naturally I assumed some graphic designer back East was responsible for this travesty, so was not impressed to discover that the contracted studio is actually in Vancouver. However, further research led to the actual artist, who is the noted food painter, Mary Ellen Johnston from South Carolina, so my suspicions turned out to be justified after all.

  Then came May 5, when “Nanaimo” went to the polls for a federal by-election, and the Green candidate won for only the second time ever in a Canadian federal election, thus doubling Green representation in the House.

   Naturally Green promoters are ecstatic over this result, crowing all manner of future election success. 

   But I wouldn’t put a penny on either Paul Manley retaining the seat in October (although he could) or the Greens expanding their representation in BC (although that could also happen). 

   Here’s why:

1.  Nanaimo-Ladysmith is a new riding, created from 2 older ones, Nanaimo-Cowichan, handily won by Jean Crowder of the NDP in 2011, and Nanaimo-Alberni, won equally handily by James Lunney of the Conservatives. 

   In 2015 Sheila Malcolmson of the NDP won Nanaimo-Ladysmith with only 33.2%, the lowest percentage win of any riding in BC in that election. 

   In other words, the common knowledge that “Nanaimo is an NDP stronghold” is just wrong in the case of this riding, even though it has “Nanaimo” in its name.

2.  Paul Manley, who won this time (37.3%) came fourth with 20% in 2015. In that election he had wanted to follow his father, James Manley, who represented Nanaimo-Cowichan for the NDP in the 80’s. However, his outspoken views on Palestine scuppered that hope, so he became a Green.

   In other words, what happened this time was that the NDP vote (23.1%), and the Liberal vote (11%) collapsed from 2015, and many of those voters went to Manley and the Greens instead. 

3.  The Conservative vote went from 23.4% to 24.8%, hardly a factor. The party was, however, very happy with John Hirst, an “associate manager” at Sun Life Financial in Nanaimo, and he claims he’ll win next time. Expect him to try again in October.

4.  By all accounts the NDP candidate, Bob Chamberlin, was a splendid candidate, a vice-president of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs, experienced politically, and well-spoken. However, he is from northern Vancouver Island, a first-nations person but not Salish, as are the aboriginal voters of the riding. He had no obvious connection to the area.

   I don’t think being aboriginal prevents candidates from being elected for the NDP or the Liberals, but I don’t think it helps either, particularly after the hash Jody Wilson-Raybould made of being the Liberal Attorney-General/Justice Minister. (By way of consequence, I don’t anticipate another aboriginal cabinet minister in the federal government for a long time. And I think the electorate, some of which is never very far from overtly-racist where aboriginals are concerned, has become or continues to be chary of aboriginal politicians, particularly those like Bob and Jody who take leadership roles in aboriginal politics.)

5.  Michelle Corfield the Liberal candidate who got 11% at least lives and has a career in Nanaimo, although her band is in the Ucluelet area. She is also active in her band’s politics, which will not have helped.

   Did the Liberals imagine they had a shot at taking this riding? The Prime Minister never got closer than Tofino.

6.  It may be coincidence, but by now it will be obvious that two white guys came first and second, followed by an aboriginal guy and, far behind, an aboriginal female. Draw whatever conclusions appear appropriate, as I obviously have.

7.  By-elections are almost never much of a barometer of voter intentions during a federal election. For one thing, that campaign is still (in spite of the poisonous anti-Trudeau ad campaign presently underway) on the margins of most voters’ consciousness. By September things could be vastly different; by then we could be deciding whether we want a repeat of the Conservative politics and policies, the widespread rejection of which the Liberal campaign of 2015 exploited so effectively, or another term of the present Liberal government. Or a minority government of either stripe.

   In any case, many of us will be voting not for what we want, necessarily, but reacting to what we definitely don’t want.

   And even more of us will in effect be voting for the Prime Minister we want, because that’s how the world sees us.

8.  Unless something miraculous happens, I think the NDP is in deep trouble federally. Electing Jagmeet Singh as leader has not helped, not even in BC. Not even after he won his Burnaby seat, which, because he won it in a by-election, he could well have trouble holding. He’s obviously a competent politician, but he doesn’t, as far as I can tell, inspire, and NDP leaders need to inspire to be effective. The turban doesn’t help, probably not even in Sikh-dominated ridings. So I think every sitting NDP MP and every 2019 NDP candidate will have his or her work cut out for her or him, and most will lose.

   The number of sitting NDP MPs who have decided to retire tells the story.

9.  The story of the 2019 federal election in Nanaimo-Ladysmith and many other ridings is likely to be decided by where the NDP vote goes, and I’m still betting that when the crunch comes and it becomes clear that the Conservatives and Andrew Scheer are the likely alternative, and not the Greens, most of it will go Liberal, just like it did in 2015.