Surrey BC Riding Watch – Fleetwood/Port Kells

I plan to do a weekly update of the local races in the South Fraser Valley area.  It turns out that several of the “battleground” ridings of this election are ridings I live in or drive through every day.  I thought people might be interested in what is going on and how the races are shaping up.

Fleetwood/Port Kells

Incumbent: Nina Grewal (CON)

This is the one where I live.  Since the write was dropped, her signs went up early and plentifully, closely followed by her NDP opponent, Sao Fernando.  This riding has been mentioned in several places as one to watch, as support for Nina has never been that strong even though she has been elected twice so far.  It’s supposed to be a close race because the Liberals have tapped an ex-provincial cabinet minister under the BC Liberals, Brenda Locke to run against her.

My sense is that Grewal’s weak support comes from her marriage to the unfortunate Gurmant Grewal.  His fall from grace attracted a lot of negative publicity and caused him to lose his seat, which I think unsettled her team in Fleetwood.  I think most voters in this riding just vote Conservative, and would vote for a dog named Rover if he ran as a Conservative.  She’s been adequate but unspectacular in my view as an MP.  I don’t see her around the riding much.  I watched her in a candidates’ debate during the ’06 election and she was very party line up until the point where a man on an open mike said something that she took personally, then she got very animated.  If she showed that passion about her party and its policies, I might actually vote for her instead of just against the other parties.

Having said all that, I have also seen Brenda Locke at a candidates’ debate when she ran for the Provincial seat of Surrey/Green Timbers against Sue Hammell.  She was also singularly unspectacular, and lost to Sue in the election, despite Hammell actually living in Victoria and not even being from Surrey.  I don’t see her as being much of a “star candidate” though she does have a public profile, which is more than I can say for the NDP candidate.  The fact that it’s a week into the election and I have yet to see a single Liberal sign up in the riding leads me to believe they don’t have an organization in place to back her, or that organization is very weak.

So far, I don’t see a threat to Grewal’s seat, though she’s not done much to impress as an MP.  Tune in next week for new developments.