Incumbent:
Jenny Kwan (New Democratic | 2015)
Candidates:
Liberal: Mark Wiens
Conservative: Lita Cabal
New Democratic: Jenny Kwan
Green: Nikida Steel
People’s: Meghan Emily Murphy
Communist: Kimball Cariou
2021 Results:
New Democratic - 56 per cent
Liberal - 20 per cent
Conservative - 11 per cent
Green - eight per cent
People’s - three per cent
Barring a four-year break after the NDP’s 1993 meltdown, Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»East has continuously gone for the NDP and its CCF predecessor for nine decades. Even when the BC NDP was scythed down to two out of 77 seats in their 2001 annihilation, the last holdouts made camp here. With the NDP in the doldrums though, Jenny Kwan will be in for a slugfest.
Typically in Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»East, parties outside the NDP don’t even try much. One could argue that given their repeated appearances on the ballot, the hardest-working ones are the Communist Party of Canada, not to be confused with the occasional Marxist-Leninist or Trotskyist offshoot. For example, the Conservatives paradropped in a nomination contestant from Fleetwood Port Kells across the Fraser River to serve as a paper candidate here. This time, though, the Liberals are hoping to break the riding’s long NDP streak with Realtor Mark Wiens.
In 1993, the Liberals managed a stunning upset with Anna Terrana, an Italian Canadian immigrant with deep roots in Metro Vancouver’s diaspora and Roman Catholic communities. Her strong appeal there translated to strength among the riding’s Italian Canadian community, concentrated among Hastings-Sunrise’s single-family homes largely east of Kamloops Street. Nowadays, the Liberal coalition looks quite a bit different.
Thirty years after Terrana’s win, the riding has changed dramatically. One of the key developments is the consolidation of “Red Square” behind the NDP, a term colloquially used by Vision Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»to describe a solidly left-wing area stretching from Strathcona to the north, Grandview-Woodland to the east, Mount Pleasant to the south, and Main Street to the west. Residents here tend to be a mix of young, working-class residents, retired union workers, and young urban professionals that can’t afford to move west to Fairview yet.
Ultimately, the race will depend on whether or not Kwan gets caught sleeping at the wheel. In safe seats like this, the dominant party’s strength is as much cultural as it is physical. If the NDP infrastructure there can convince voters in lefty Grandview-Woodland and Mount Pleasant to stick with the party, they stand a good chance at holding off the nationwide Liberal surge. Wiens will be looking to the more affluent parts of the riding such as Mount Pleasant and Olympic Village while tapping into the party’s potential around Chinatown as the base for a win, but he still has a hill to climb in more left-leaning neighbourhoods in order to pry Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»East loose from the New Democrats.
Hugh Chan is a UBC student specializing in international relations and data science.
