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Opinion: The results of Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­Granville might be symbolic of Canada’s federal election

Seemingly the only competitive federal electoral district in the city, Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­Granville may be a bellwether riding for the results of Canada’s 44th election.
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Based on polls, the riding of Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­Granville seems to be a close microcosm of the federal election. Photo: Voting ballot/Getty Images

Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­Granville might be the only competitive riding within the City Vancouver. It may also be symbolic of the entire Canadian federal election.

The City of Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­has six federal electoral districts. Currently, five of those ridings are safe seats for their incumbent Member of Parliament:

  • Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­Centre (Liberal MP Hedy Fry since 1993)
  • Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­South (Liberal MP Harjit Sajjan since 2015)
  • Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­East (NDP MP Jenny Kwan since 2015)
  • Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­Quadra (Liberal MP Joyce Murray since 2008)
  • Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­Kingsway (NDP MP Don Davies since 2008)

The remaining sixth riding, Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­Granville, does not have an incumbent MP in the campaign, as Jody Wilson Raybould is not seeking re-election.

The Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­Granville electoral district was created in 2012 and first contested in 2015. Wilson-Raybould won it twice, first in 2015 as a Liberal and then in 2019 as an independent. Her departure casts uncertainty on how her 2019 voters will vote this time.

The  have declared that their Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­Granville candidate, Anjali Appadurai, will continue Wilson-Raybould’s “fight” to hold power accountable.  acknowledged this, wished Appadurai “all the best,” and referred to NDP leader Jagmeet Singh as her “friend” — maybe as close to an endorsement as she might give.

But, Jody Wilson-Raybould’s influence may reach beyond her home riding. Her book, , is on sale after advanced polls close, but six days before election day. The book will reflect on her time in Cabinet and it probably won’t reflect well on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or his party.

Trudeau was already forced to answer questions about the book, while a former Liberal cabinet minister seemed to refer to the book as “.” This was two days after Green Party leader Annamie Paul and Conservative leader Erin O’Toole name-dropped Wilson-Raybould in order to scold the Prime Minister during the English-language party leaders’ debate.

All of this is not even three months after Trudeau cabinet minister  sent a “racist and misogynist” text to Wilson-Raybould.

Clearly, Wilson-Raybould’s experience in the Trudeau cabinet continues to hound the Liberals just as her decision to not seek re-election hangs over Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­Granville.

Based on polls, Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­Granville also seems to be a close microcosm of the federal election.

 currently projects Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­Granville as 35% for the Liberals, 29% for the Conservatives, 25% for the NDP, 6% for the Greens, and 4.5% for the PPC. While not perfect, it loosely mirrors national polling within the margin of error.

At the start of the campaign, Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­Granville Liberal candidate Taleeb Noormohamed was favoured to win, much like the Liberals were favoured to win a majority government. However, just like Prime Minister Trudeau lost favourability during the first few weeks of the campaign, Noormohamed also struggled with questions about his own credibility and trustworthiness. In national polls and polls for Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­Granville, the Conservatives have surged to make the election more competitive. Although, also in both cases, the Liberals seem to be rebounding.

The Conservatives, notably, have not won a riding in the City of Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­since Wai Young defeated Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­South Liberal incumbent Ujjal Dosanjh in 2011 when Prime Minister Stephen Harper won his only majority government. In fact, with the exception of Young’s one win, Conservatives have been shut out of Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­since the 1980s. A victory for Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­Granville Conservative candidate Kailin Che would presumably reflect a big national win for the Conservatives.

Similarly, if the NDP’s Anjali Appadurai takes the riding, it will probably reflect the party achieving its most optimistic national seat projection of about 40 seats.

Of course, the vote tally of this one riding could be completely discordant with the overall election results. But based on the campaign so far, expect Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­Granville to be a bellwether riding for the entire country.

Mo Amir is the host of This is VANCOLOUR, a politics and culture podcast available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and