The local race to replace Stockwell Day as the MP for Okanagan-Coquihalla marks in many ways a recent watershed in local politics.
Freed from Day’s looming if not crushing presence, the current campaign has generated an unprecedented amount of public interest, if one is to measure the attention that has surrounded the contested nature of Dan Albas’ nomination as the Conservative candidate as well as the sheer number of public events featuring Albas and his five rivals.
The candidates themselves have certainly generated plenty of talking points.
Consider this. This race features a suit-wearing Green in his 20s who sells lumber for a living (Dan Bouchard). It includes a Liberal (John Kidder), who describes himself as a child of the 1960s, who travels from campaign stop to campaign stop in GMC Safari Shaggin’ Wagon, who plays Bob Dylan songs and who appears in the company of his actress sister Margot who once dated Pierre Elliot Trudeau.
And let us not forget the most recent addition, independent Dieter Wittel, a German-born immigrant, whose unorthodox platform appears to be a copy-and-paste job that combines tracts from objectivist Ayn Rand of Atlas Shrugged fame and Canadian globalization critic Naomi Klein wrapped up in a strident form of Canadian nationalism that would make George Grant appear to be positively pro-American.
And Wittel, it should be noted, is a trained doctor, who once worked for Reform Party leader Preston Manning.
It is to say, the least, all very exciting, but also confusing, if not distracting.
The amount of public attention generated by these candidates certainly presents a challenge for the more sombre, if you will less flashy, candidates running in this race, particularly New Democratic David Finnis, a trained librarian, whose campaign made early headlines, and not necessarily the good kinds, by recycling election signs from his previous campaigns.
But if Finnis’ campaign might lack the je ne sais quo style elements of his competitors, it would be a serious mistake to underestimate its substance, not to mention its potential strength.
Finnis’ ties in the provincial New Democratic Party run wide and deep.
He has headed two different provincial constituencies and currently sits on the party’s provincial council.
This resume gives Finnis institutional strength because the provincial branch of the New Democratic Party significantly overlaps with its federal counterpart, for which Finnis has already run once in 1997.
Finnis also enjoys what one might call public visibility in the major centres of the riding, either through his professional ties as librarian in West Kelowna or as a long-time volunteer with several organizations in Penticton and Summerland, where he currently serves on the local arts council.
Finally, Finnis’ strongest asset might well be his extensive experience as an elected municipal councillor, having served on Summerland’s council for nine consecutive years before losing re-election in 2008.
None of the other candidates except for Albas can offer this degree of experience in elected office and he has served for less than three years, albeit in a larger community.
All these elements could in the words of Finnis himself “help” turn this riding from a Conservative Blue into a New Democratic Orange on the electoral map come May 2.
It has certainly happened in the past.
New Democratic Jack Whittaker represented parts of what is now Okanagan-Coquihalla from 1988 to 1993.
Voters in the riding of Southern Interior — whose boundaries cover part of the South Okanagan — sent New Democrat Alex Atamanenko to Ottawa in 2006 and in 2008. Chances are they will do so again in 2011.
In fact, New Democrats running in the Interior of British Columbia have consistently challenged, even defeated right-of-centre candidates during past federal elections, a legacy that would appear to give Finnis the inside track among the anti-Albas candidates.
Finnis acknowledges this dynamic when he argues that centre-of-right parties can no longer take this region for granted.
“We are seeing shifts to other parties and we are certainly seeing shifts to us, the New Democrats,” he said.
One reason for the party’s rising fortunes appears to be the emergence of pension reform and health care as major campaign issues — issues that play to the strength of the party and its leader Jack Layton, who has styled himself to be the only genuine defender of those programs.
Finnis has certainly not hesitated to raise those issues, as he did during Monday’s forum in Penticton when he remained the audience — which definitely trended north of 60 in terms of age — that New Democrats such as Tommy Douglas and Stanley Knowles played a major role in the creation of those social programs.
Finnis has also appealed to the democratic sensibilities of that demographic when he accused this current generation of Conservatives of undermining democracy.
“That must bother some of those Red Tories, some of those Progressive Conservatives, who have a respect for parliamentary decency and how the system is supposed to work,” he said.
“We can agree to disagree, but we have to do it in a respectful manner.”
Finnis’ message is certainly not original.
His Liberal and Green rivals have offered different variations on the same themes, which in way confirms the divisibility of the anti-Conservative vote.
But Finnis’ campaign might well turn out to be proof that the race goes to the slow and steady.