Vancouver Kingsway riding heats up
With her recent move from Richmond to Vancouver Kingsway, Wendy Yuan (left) is warning NDP MP Don Davies that the riding belongs to Liberals.
Long-time Richmond resident and federal Liberal Wendy Yuan has moved on up”¦to Vancouver Kingsway.
“I bought a house on 39th and Alberta,” Yuan told the Georgia Straight in a phone interview. “I live in the riding. I don’t have a house in Richmond anymore.”
Next month, Yuan, her husband, and their 21-year-old son will move the last of their belongings, she said. This means political opponents can no longer call her a carpetbagger or a parachute candidate.
Yuan is already sounding a warning to incumbent NDP MP Don Davies that Vancouver Kingsway “belongs to the Liberals”. When the federal writ is dropped, Davies and Yuan will be in a political rematch going back to the 2008 federal election.
“I am very confident that we are going to get it back this time,” Yuan said. “The momentum we have up there is very high. I’ve been door-knocking since the beginning of July, and I feel it. I really feel it on the doorsteps when I talk to the people.”
In 2008, Davies took the seat with 15,933 votes to Yuan’s 13,164. Conservative candidate Salomon Rayek garnered 12,419 votes. In 2006, then-Liberal incumbent David Emerson took the riding for the Liberals with 20,062 votes, 43.5 percent of the total, to NDP challenger Ian Waddell’s 15,470, or 33.5 percent.
Emerson enraged constituents by crossing the floor to the Conservatives soon after the election, meaning that the riding has seen representation—controversially, in the case of Emerson—from all three major federal parties since Emerson’s first victory in 2004, when Yuan stepped aside to enable him to run.
“I think that, in this riding, the David Emerson factor is still there,” Davies told the Straight by phone. “People know that what happened the last time they voted for a Liberal was they got a Conservative. They also have seen [Liberal leader Michael] Ignatieff move the Liberal party to the right.”
Yuan said she heard from event organizers that Ignatieff’s personal appearance at the summer barbecue at Kensington Community Centre on August 21, as part of a cross-country tour, drew 1,312 people. This led Vancouver East NDP MP Libby Davies to tell the Straight that it will be a “tight race” this time but that Yuan will “absolutely not” win.
The NDP crushed the Liberals and Conservatives in the November 2009 New Westminster-Coquitlam federal by-election after highlighting its opposition to the harmonized sales tax.
The 2006 census tallied 119,815 residents in Vancouver Kingsway.
Don Davies said that over 100 languages are spoken in the riding, adding that Chinese-speaking constituents make up 43 percent of the population and Filipinos another 11 percent.
“Another 10 percent is South Asian, and there are burgeoning Vietnamese and Korean populations, as well as dozens of others,” he said. “So whoever represents this riding has to have a really good feeling for the multicultural aspect of it. I spend a lot of time and a lot of energy and a lot of focus meeting with as many community groups from as many different perspectives as possible.”
Yuan, who was born and raised in Beijing, speaks both Mandarin and Cantonese. She said that if elected, she will focus on representing working-class people in the riding, streamlining foreign-credential requirements, and creating “a safe community”.
Yuan initially said she did not want to discuss the Emerson issue, adding that it is “in the past”. However, she said later in the interview that she felt his crossing the floor was a “betrayal”.
“Talk about loyalty, that is a betrayal to the voters,” she said. “It is the voters who voted you in, and you owe it to them, and you run under the Liberal banner. I can go on forever on this subject. My volunteers were so upset. They helped him to get elected too.”
Conservative party candidate Trang Nguyen did not respond to a message by the Straight’s deadline.
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Comments
really? This is just typical liberal arrogance, I hope they get crushed in the next election. The riding belongs to the voters and the voters choose Don Davies (and good on them for making the right choice there).
The Federal Liberals still have not learned their lessons from the last election or even from their competition. Internally, they are still the "old crew" of bureaucratic politicians. While I am not a conservative, I do appreciate the conservative grassroots style of politics. The way they are structured they can raise a tremendous amount of money in short order along with a very large volunteer base through that structure. From what I have seen their membership is large and certainly motivated.
The Federal Liberals need to look at and adopt that get down and get dirty (not the political type of dirty, but the work ethic dirty of building a solid grassroots base) approach.
We have moved from the Liberal camp to non-aligned voters for the time being, essentially we will determine who we vote for by what the candidate stands for and their ability to best represent as close as possible the views that we hold.
Don Davies is wrong about the direction the Federal Liberals have moved, the real problem is that they haven't moved anywhere at all. Between elections, they have been virtually invisible and that is the real connection with voters problem they have.
Does that make the citizens of Vancouver Kingsway her servants?
She's going to focus on representing working-class people in the riding?
No she's not.
If she's elected she will focus on obeying without question or conscience the orders of her Federal Liberal master in Ottawa just like all of the other Liberal MPs did when Ignatieff ordered them to vote in favour of the HST.
Liberal MPs Ujjal Dosanjh, Joyce Murray, Hedy Fry and Keith Martin criticized the HST when it was introduced but Dosanjh, Murray and Fry voted for it anyway on orders from the Liberal party brass.
Martin didn't even have the guts to show up.
Conservative MP Dona Cadman vowed to break ranks with her own government and vote against the HST, but she also skipped the vote.
The Federal NDP was the only federal party with the integrity to represent their constituents and the guts to oppose the HST INCLUDING NDP MP Don Davies.
Vancouver Kingsway belongs to the citizens lady.
With an attitude like this, she may as well pack up her belongings and move back to Richmond.
I will give Yuan marks from persistence, but not for acumen. There is nothing that has changed since 2008 which would make a Liberal win in Vancouver Kingsway any more likely today than it was then. If anything, overall conditions and probabilities have worsened, and the growth in the Kingsway Conservative vote from 2006 to 2008, paralleling the Tory growth in other Vancouver ridings like South and Quadra, will have progressed even further, a clear problem for any Liberal aspirant like Yuan, and a truly deadly menace for Dosanjh and Murray.
Don Davies should be re-elected on his merits, regardless of party. And he's just come back from a round of French immersion!
Rod Smelser
Really? Well yes, your highness, forgive me. I was under the impression that we actually lived in a democracy, where parties come and go according to the voting patterns of the people your supposed to represent.
If you want to get elected and stay elected....... shut up, do your job and represent your riding. That goes for the bunch of ya...
Wendy Yuan had better wake up to the fact that she needs to not only talk about it (because it is still very much an issue of the present, and it is not "in the past") and that she would be wise to make the Emerson Defection an issue if she wants to stand a chance in that riding.
A federal riding called Vancouver Kingsway has existed since the 1950s, with the exception of the period 1988-1997. For the 50-odd period since 1953, the seat mainly returned CCF-NDP members: Angus MacInnis and Alex Macdonald of the CCF (1953-58); Arnold Webster (1962-1965), Grace MacInnis (1965-1974), Ian Waddell (1979-1988), and Don Davies (2008-present) of the NDP. Conservative John Browne won it during the Diefenbaker landslide of 1958 but promptly lost in the 1962 election. So over the 48 years that the riding has existed, it has been held by the CCF-NDP for 30 years (60% of the time). The Liberals held it for 14 years under Simma Holt (1974-79), Sophia Leung (1997-2004), and David Emerson (2004-2006). Even if you count Emerson's last term as a Liberal win (2006-2008), that still only adds up to 16 years--half the total for the CCF-NDP.
As for the quality of representation, the CCF-NDP wins hands down. Sophia Leung provided mediocre representation during her forgettable tenure while David Emerson showed outright contempt for his constituents. In Don Davies, the people of Vancouver Kingsway have a capable, articulate, and hard-working MP. I trust they know they're on to a good thing and will re-elect him.
Emerson will never be forgotten in Kingsway. Not as long as the Liberals put up candidates like Wendy Yuan, ....
=================================
Good point.
Does anyone have a link to a statement, or better yet a YouTube, showing Yuan vigorously endorsing David Emerson in the 2006 election?
Also, I wonder what role Brad Zubyk is playing in advising Yuan's campaign, especially given the post by Maya Angelou, which is pure Toronto-style politics.
Rod Smelser
they just sit on their hands and do nothing. just like how when the HST passed, they sat around and nodded along.
i live in vancouver-kingsway and i'm definitely voting NDP because i know Don Davies will stand up for the riding and ask the tough questions.
also, just because you were rich enough to buy a house in vancouver-kingsway doesn't mean you're a true resident of vancouver-kingsway, wendy.
With a hardworking, loyal and committed candidate such as Yuan and with some luck of Iggy pulling it higher in the poll, Don Davies's wishful thinking for the Emerson effect to still impact the poll is sounding weak.
The Conservative tide swept into inner Metro Vancouver heavily in 2008 knocking off Liberals on the North Shore, Richmond, and almost Ujjal in Vancouver South. The Conservatives also bled a good chunk of Liberal votes in Vancouver Kingsway.
That's doubtful to happen again in the next go round and many of those 2008 CPC voters in Vancouver Kingsway and elsewhere will likely migrate back to the Liberals.
Vancouver Kingsway is still a toss-up. The riding has a large Chinese-Canadian population and Davies has incumbency The Liberal vote will undoubtedly go up. But will it be enough?
The Liberals took us for granted when they parachuted in the opportunistic and never-present David Emerson. They still thought they owned us when they replaced Emerson with carpetbagger Yuan in the 2008 election.
Message to Wendy Yuan: Try living in Vancouver Kingsway for as long as Don Davies did before he ran for office. That way you could sit out at least the next two elections.
Yuan has established herself as a small business owner through her hard work over the last 22 years in business. She came to this country as a student with $ 50 dollars in her pocket 26 years ago thanks to the multicutrual society we are living in.This is a perfect immigrant success story we should all applaud.
The fact that Wendy bought a house in Kingsway and sold the one in Richmond clearly shows her commitment to the Kingsway voters. I wonder why some NDPers are talking like a sour grape ??? It's about time for you to get off your computer, move your bud and make yourself rich some day !
It is obvious that the Liberals want to create a false impression that they are in the game. Yuen arrogantly thought she'd win last time - and was given a significant loss. Davies is even stronger now, with every group and across all communities.
With the Liberals SUPPORTING the HST, and SUPPORTING Harper at every turn, this seat will return even stronger to Davies and the New Democrats.
Most importantly, the unbelievable arrogance of Yuen saying the Riding "belongs" to the Liberals tells us all we need to know about arrogance and entitlement. This Riding belongs to the CONSTITUENTS. Like her mentor David Emerson (who she helped win), Yuen just doesn't get it.
In this Riding, Davies does, and the voters know it in increasing numbers.
I would hope that ethnicity of any candidate is secondary in the voters mind. What should matter is how involved the candidate is in the local community and how visible the candidate is generally. Visibility should never be just the pre-planned photo ops and the pre-arranged set-ups with dignitaries. The candidates will need to be literally everywhere in the riding from knocking on doors to coffee shop chin wags to mainstreeting throughout the riding.
Voters need to make their decision based on their personal beliefs and how closely a specific candidate reflects those beliefs. As I see it perhaps the major obstacle facing Wendy Yuan is not whether she is capable, it will be the lack of roots in the community, her history from her website while interesting has very little to do with the riding itself other than photo ops and attending functions.
What the voters in Van-Kingsway and hopefully everywhere else will need to do in the next election is to be pro-active and ask those questions of all of the candidates which will make it clear that they are not satisfied with the non answer answers. We all know those answers, the ones that are sanitized by the national parties.
I am sure that Wendy Yuan realizes she has an uphill battle, she is up against a popular incumbent who ended the last campaign with a comfortable margin over her. It can be argued that some of the NDP support in the last campaign were upset Liberals over a combination of both the David Emerson defection and the failure of Stephan Dion to understand the bread and butter nature of the last campaign but if the incumbent MP has been representing the riding well that may be their overriding point.
Certainly this will be a riding to watch this time next year when we go to the polls.
I would suggest to the Liberal candidate though she might want to reflect that the riding actually belongs to the voters and it will be voters who will decide which candidate and by extension which party will represent their interests in Ottawa.
"The fact that Wendy bought a house in Kingsway and sold the one in Richmond clearly shows her commitment to the Kingsway voters."
No, it shows that Wendy Yuan is clearly showing her commitment to Wendy Yuan.
In what is a fairly typical Liberal strategy, she is riding shopping, bouncing back and forth between Richmond and East Van, looking for a riding where she can have a good chance at being a placeholder on the Liberal backbenches, ala Sophia Leung.
I guess she doesnt want to fight a Tory in Richmond, which makes sense, seeing as how Liberals havent done much fighting them in Ottawa under Ignatieff.
To be blunt - Don Davies didnt have to make an effort to publicize that he "bought" a house in Kingsway - he already had the decency to live there before deciding that he thought he was the right person to represent them.
Make no mistake, Maya, we arent scared, just disgusted.
Figure out the difference, and the Liberals may have another PM one day.