Pundit recalls stunning 2013 B.C. NDP loss as federal election campaign rolls on

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      Many New Democrats in B.C. would probably rather forget 2013.

      Especially May 14, the day they were supposed to return to power after a decade.

      As former B.C. NDP MLA David Schreck recalls one more time, “Everybody thought Adrian Dix was going to win, and on eight o’clock at election night, we found that all of the pollsters and pundits were wrong.”

      Schreck, a New Democrat and a pundit, brought this all back in a phone interview Wednesday (August 19) for a reason. 

      The North Vancouver-Lonsdale was being asked by the Straight if he thinks the road is clear for a history-making victory by New Democrats in the ongoing campaign for the October 19 federal election.

      Immediately, he pointed back to the heart-breaking loss of the B.C. NDP and their then-leader Dix in 2013.

      Tom Mulcair and the federal NDP have been topping the Conservatives and Liberals in several polls. Surveys suggest that the country may be in for its first New Democrat government.

      But according to Schreck, polls at this time are “nothing but light entertainment”.

      Dix was 20 points ahead in surveys in 2013, only to lose to Christy Clark and the B.C. Liberals.

      “I think anything is possible,” Schreck said when asked about the chances that Mulcair and the federal NDP could go the same way in the October 19 national election as Dix and the B.C. NDP did in 2013.

      Schreck continued: “I tell all of my friends in the NDP: ignore the polls and campaign as if you are one vote short of winning in every polling area. You win based on who shows up to vote, not on who tells pollsters what they think.”

      With more than two months to go before the election, it’s almost an eternity in politics.

      Besides, Schreck noted, “I think that the people that will determine who wins the election probably won’t pay attention until they sit down at Thanksgiving dinner and talk about it.”

      “All of this stuff in August,” Schreck also said, “most people are totally ignoring.” 

      Comments

      1 Comments

      ursa minor

      Aug 20, 2015 at 12:18pm

      Schreck is missing the real reason why the NDP lost in 2013 - Adrian Dix' position on the Kinder Morgan and Northern Gateway pipelines.

      While proposing a 'made-in-BC' review process was a great idea, Dix made the mistake of going further and proclaiming that an NDP government would fight to cancel those projects. That moved served to activate the corporate community, particularly the oil and gas industry, to rally behind Christy Clark and see Dix buried in an avalanche of money spent on attack ads. Winning Vancouver Point-Grey and exiling Clark to Kelowna was nothing more than a Pyrrhic victory for New Democrats.

      The Federal NDP, while being harangued and falsely accused by the Greens of supporting Kinder Morgan, are taking the right position: fix the review process. If the review is depoliticized, transparent, evidence-based, and allows for complete forensic method (including cross-examination), it has far more legitimacy than the Approve Everything/Dominionist approach of the Conservatives or Approve Nothing/Lebensreformist stance of the Greens.

      Dix' fear of the Greens and lack of any sense of realpolitik not only damaged the BCNDP, but also any progress British Columbians could have seen on the Environment, because he threw the election to the LNG delusions of Princess Hardhat Photo-op.

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