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Taking the national temperature for #Elxn43

Federal election set for Oct. 21, 2019
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Liberal MP for the Sea to Sky, Pamela Goldsmith-Jones, is the corridor's only confirmed candidate for the Oct. 21 federal election. Photo from whistler.ca

Following provincial and municipal elections in back-to-back years (2017 and 2018, respectively), Whistlerites will head back to the polls this October for Canada's 43rd federal election.

In the West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country riding, so far only incumbent Liberal MP Pamela Goldsmith-Jones has been confirmed as a candidate.

There are some big issues currently permeating the national consciousness—the carbon tax, climate change and immigration among them—but with election day scheduled for Monday, Oct. 21, and the Liberals and Conservatives polling closely nationally, it remains anyone's election to win.

There are often a variety of issues in any election that may be unlikely to drive debate on their own, but can add up to form an impression with voters, said Max Cameron, director with the Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions at the University of British Columbia.

"The Liberals were incredibly good in the last election of just taking a range of positions that differentiated them from Harper, and they tapped into a mood for change that people wanted," Cameron said.

"Now they are in a different position, because they've got a record to defend; they've been four years in office, and they no longer represent the party of change. So does that sort of shift (votes) back to the Conservatives? Or are the NDP able to sort of pick up on some of that?"

In 2015, the Conservative Party's driving narrative was that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, then the least experienced of all four federal party leaders, was "just not ready" for the highest office in the land.

Four years later, and that same narrative could be turned against Conservative leader Andrew Scheer.

"On the Conservatives, there are a couple of general views that have been expressed, and one is that Mr. Scheer is not experienced yet, and is not well known and does not have that name recognition yet," said UBC political science professor Allan Tupper. "On the other hand, there is a positive view that suggests the Liberals have exposed themselves in several ways to Conservative critiques."

The Conservatives have had some opportunities they maybe didn't expect, Tupper said: a greater complexity in federal/provincial relations, criticism over the renegotiated NAFTA, and recent complications with China among them.

"And the issue of the carbon tax is of course one that the Conservatives feel very at ease with, and have for awhile, for right or wrong. They see it as one that's easily dealt with politically, and so far you just simply say, 'It's a tax. Taxes are bad, and this is an unnecessary tax,'" Tupper said. "There is, of course, a large opposing view of that, but it's one with some credence in the eyes of a lot of people."

The NDP approaches the vote from a position of weakness, Cameron noted, with its own leader, Jagmeet Singh, also untested and currently without his own seat in Parliament.

"I think this would be a very different story if (former NDP leader) Tom Mulcair was the leader of the NDP, because then I would worry, if I were a Liberal, about really hemorrhaging of Liberal support to the left, and that's (still) a possibility," he said. "Of course, the right could also be divided by (Maxime) Bernier (leader of the newly formed People's Party of Canada), as that adds another sort of dynamic element here."

In 2015, Goldsmith-Jones commanded a whopping 54.5 per cent of the vote (36,300 of 66,631 total votes cast), followed by Conservative John Weston with 17,411.

The NDP's Larry Koopman finished third with 6,554 votes, while former Whistler Mayor Ken Melamed garnered 5,907 for the Green Party.

Voter turnout was an impressive 74 per cent.

Are there issues you would like to see covered locally ahead of the 43rd Canadian Federal Election? Email reporter Braden Dupuis at bdupuis@piquenewsmagazine.com.