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Federal Election 2008: Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon

The election in Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon will leave a mountain to climb for its candidates — a mountain by the name of Chuck Strahl, who has held the riding since 1993.

The election in Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon will leave a mountain to climb for its candidates — a mountain by the name of Chuck Strahl, who has held the riding since 1993.

Now a fifth-term MP and one of the most influential ministers in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet, Strahl will be facing off against challengers from three major political parties to represent Pemberton and several other communities in the House of Commons.

Helen Kormendy, a councillor with the Village of Ashcroft, will be taking him on under the NDP banner, while Barbara Lebeau, a veteran of the legal profession, will carry the flag for the Greens. The Liberal Party has not yet appointed a candidate in Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon.

The boundaries for the riding were redrawn in 2003 as Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon and included areas A, B and C of the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District, as well as the District of Lillooet and the Village of Pemberton.

Strahl once again took the riding in the 2004 election, this time as a member of the united-right Conservative Party, which formed out of an alliance between the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservatives. He won the riding again in 2006 when the Conservatives formed a government.

Shortly after the election, Strahl was appointed to Harper’s first cabinet as Minister of Agriculture and Minister Responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB). In this role he acted on a Conservative campaign promise to reduce the authority of the CWB, which is the sole vendor of Canadian barley and wheat.

Those moves included firing Adrian Measner, the pro-monopoly board president, as well as a CWB director.

Harper shuffled his cabinet on Aug. 14, 2007, moving Strahl to Indian and Northern Affairs when former minister Jim Prentice was moved to the Industry portfolio.

In this role, Strahl has overseen the implementation of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement, the largest class action settlement in Canadian history.

Approved by the government while Prentice was minister, the settlement is intended to bring a resolution to the “legacy of Indian Residential Schools,” according to Indian and Northern Affairs Canada.

It contains three central components: a Common Experience Payment (CEP), made to former students who lived at Federal Residential Schools; an Independent Assessment Process (IAP) to help former students settle claims for abuse while they were in residential schools; and a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which will give survivors of the residential school system a chance to share their experiences in a “culturally appropriate forum.”

The government handed out $60 million to establish the TRC, but it later came under fire from Chair Harry LaForme, who criticized the government for asking the commission’s secretarial arm to report back to them on the use of funds.

Barbara Lebeau, the Green Party’s candidate, told Pique in an interview that she decided to take up the reins as a candidate because she wasn’t impressed with Strahl.

About three weeks ago she sent him a letter about the Canadian mission in Afghanistan, asking what his opinions were with regard to pulling the troops out as soon as possible.

“The end result of that letter was that I sensed that the troops will not be coming home soon,” Lebeau said. “My personal feeling about that is I’m fine with the blue berets. Let’s get the blue berets back and get our troops home. It’s just not something we should be doing, as far as I’m concerned.”

Her disappointment was compounded when she wrote Strahl an e-mail asking for confirmation that Canada would not get involved in the Russia/Georgia conflict that flared up last month.

“His answer to me was one line: ‘Our government has condemned Russia’s incursions into Georgian territory,’” Lebeau said. “Basically what that told me was that we’re taking sides here.”

“This to me, is intolerable. I don’t want another Cold War in this country. I’ve been through one and one was enough.”

After reading Strahl’s letters, Lebeau went online, researched the Green Party’s policies and found that she agreed and supported all of them — save for one or two things she didn’t mention.

She found herself gravitating closer to the Green Party when she saw that Elizabeth May was initially barred from the leaders’ debates. She soon sent a letter off to the Green Party in Vancouver, which thereafter put her in touch with Michael Clarke, CEO of the Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon Federal Green Party riding association.

Soon enough, Lebeau found herself at the riding’s nomination meeting, and within three weeks of realizing her disappointment with Chuck Strahl, is now the federal candidate taking him on under the Green banner.

A 30-year veteran of the legal profession, she has worked as a court reporter and paralegal in the areas of civil litigation and employment law. She currently works from home and transcribes court proceedings with an interest in Supreme Court civil litigation.

Lebeau is running because she thinks residents of Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon are in need of a change.

“I think they need somebody to speak for them,” she said. “There’s 120,000 people in this riding and I can almost guarantee you that 100,000 are in the same boat that I am. I’m tired of working hard only to have more and more taxes and more and more hidden costs and you name it.”

When asked her opinions about the environment, Lebeau hesitates and admits she has yet to do her homework on this issue, despite the fact that it’s the cornerstone issue for her party.

“To tell you the truth, I’m only just finding out about this stuff myself,” she said. “I do support the Green Party take on the environment, and that’s all I can say right now.”

Helen Kormendy, carrying the flag for the NDP, wants to represent Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon because she’s worried that Canada is becoming too corporate.

“My concern is that Canada under Harper is going down that road of corporatization,” she said. “A corporation's bottom line is profit and rightly so, but we need government to create legislation that works for all of us. That's fair, and responsible and accountable. I'm not seeing that with Harper.”

Kormendy currently serves as a councilor with the Village of Ashcroft, where she lives. A lifelong New Democrat, she has also worked as a social worker in child protection and family support, and has also worked as a mediator for people who were divorcing.

But what really separates Kormendy from Strahl is education, according to her.

“I guess the only thing that's different about me too with Chuck Strahl is that I'm educated,” she said. “Not to say he isn’t in a formal way, I have three degrees.

“He comes out of a high school and goes into the workforce. I come out of high school, I work for a while and since then I have a formal education. I have a degree in political science, minor anthropology… I have a degree in social work… and I also have a master’s of social work from UBC.”

While three major parties have their candidates and are campaigning, the Liberals have yet to declare one. Liberal riding association president Stan Rogers said the party’s candidate has not yet received clearance from her employer to run for the party, leaving Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon as the only B.C. riding without a Liberal candidate.

Rogers did, however, promise to have a candidate by Sept. 23.