Vexing Vancouver Granville

Glacier Digital Media

It is said that a compromise is a result that leaves every participant equally unhappy. If that is how a compromise is defined, then the parliamentary elections of 2021 were surely a compromise.

On August 15, 2021, Governor General Mary Simon formally dissolved Parliament and ordered the Chief Electoral Officer to issue writs of election, ushering in a new election cycle.

The election proved to be as unpredictable as it was anticlimactic, with the polling at various times suggesting a sweeping Liberal majority, a slim Conservative victory, or a slight Liberal minority. While many ridings across the country were politically troublesome to the major players in the election, none were as vexing as Vancouver Granville. The riding was competitive during the race, a microcosm of the election at large, with it swinging rapidly between the Liberals, Conservatives, and the NDP during the election cycle.

The riding had been held by Jody Wilson-Raybould, a once-rising star in the Liberal Party and former Minister of Justice. In 2019, amid  the SNC-Lavalin scandal, she was first transferred to Minister of Veterans Affairs, a change widely regarded as a demotion, and then subsequently ejected from the Liberal parliamentary caucus, but continued sitting as an independent MP. During the 2019 general election she was re-elected, achieving victory over Liberal candidate Taleeb Noormohamed and Conservative candidate Zack Segal. In July 2021, she announced that she would not be running for re-election in the next federal election.

In the 2021 election, three important players emerged during the race in Vancouver Granville. For the Liberal Party, tech executive Taleeb Noormohamed was once again chosen as candidate. For the Conservatives, lawyer Kailin Che ran. And for the NDP, climate and social-justice activist Anjali Appadurai was selected as candidate.

One issue on which the three candidates devoted much of their attention was housing. According to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, a professional association of realtors, housing prices in the Greater Vancouver area have risen by 27.2 per cent over the last five years.

Each party proposed solutions, with the Liberals having proposed to construct 1.4 million new homes and institute measures against housing speculation, such as an anti-flipping tax. The Conservatives proposed measures including devoting 15 per cent of federal crown lands to housing, promoting high-density construction near federally-funded transit, and a two-year ban on foreign property ownership. The NDP proposed to construct 500,000 units of housing and invest in social housing and housing co-operatives. Both the Liberals and the New Democrats supported anti-speculation policies.  

The issue of housing became a sore point during the race after Mr. Noormohamed revealed in an interview with Vancouver City News that he had bought and sold over 20 properties in Greater Vancouver since 2005, a practice that would be heavily discouraged under the Liberal housing plan. CTV News, using information from public housing records, later revealed the number of properties to be over 30. Mr. Noormohamed declined to reveal the profits of those sales in an interview with CTV News, “I can’t give you an exact number,” and added “I am absolutely committed to any and all measures we have put forward [on housing].”

Polling data collected by Mainstreet Research, an Ontario-based polling firm, at the beginning of the election indicated that Vancouver Granville was a safe Liberal seat without Jody Wilson-Raybould in the race, with around a third  of respondents saying they would vote Liberal, a wide margin over the other parties. However, this early lead soon began to shift. The final projection by poll aggregator 338Canada had the Liberals at 30.7 per cent, the Conservatives at 30.3 per cent, and the NDP at 30 per cent, and considered Vancouver Granville a tossup between the three parties.

The local results proved difficult to call with the results being finally called by Elections Canada three days after Election Day. The final results were as unpredictable as predicted. Mr. Noormohamed won 17,055 votes, Ms. Appadurai won 16,619 votes, and Ms. Che won 13,290 votes,

The final national results of the election were regarded by news media and the public as having proved disappointing to everyone involved. The Liberals failed to gain a parliamentary majority, the Conservatives failed to form government, and the NDP failed to expand their caucus by any significant amount, gaining only one seat. The Bloc Quebecois did not expand their influence, the Greens saw their share of the vote fall by two thirds, and the People’s Party, while seeing major gains in the popular vote, failed to gain a single seat.

The Griffins’ Nest had the opportunity to interview Sason Ross, the campaign chair for the Noormohamed campaign and executive assistant to Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, on the election results and their impact.

When asked about whether the Government had any plans to call another election to regain their majority, he remarked that while he did not have the knowledge of such decisions, he does know “…that the Government is really now focused on the task at hand,” and that the issues “…I can see being priorities are healthcare, the environment, Indigenous reconciliation, and probably housing as well,” indicating that an election in the near future is not on the table.

When asked whether the election results had changed any of the Government’s plans and priorities, he said “I really don’t think it does,” and that “there are really critical issues that Canadians voted on in the past election that the Government must tackle.”

On the local campaign in Vancouver Granville, Mr. Ross said that he learned the importance of personal interaction on the campaign trail, explaining that “In an electoral campaign, it’s really about getting the candidate in front of voters,” and that the voters “[have] that direct line of access to the candidate.”

He also commented that during the campaign, “issues of housing and issues of the environment really came to the forefront,” giving Mr. Noormohamed a better indication of his now-constituents’ desires and attitudes when he represents them in the House of Commons.