Surrey BC Riding Watch: Newton/North Delta

Newton/North Delta

Incumbent: Sukh Dhaliwal (LIB)

I drive through this riding every day going to work, and I also go to church down there so I see a lot of this riding.

A little bit of history: this is Gurmant Grewal’s old riding. He had unfavourable publicity after he claimed to have been approached by the Liberals during their minority government to switch sides.  This led to him not running again in the ’06 election.  Interesting note: his wife, Nina Grewal continues to hold the riding of Fleetwood/Port Kells.

So, the current incumbent, Sukh Dhaliwal, rode to victory on a bit of a reaction to Gurmant’s episodes.  As such, it seems to me that he holds his seat fairly tenuously.  I haven’t really heard of him doing much of anything of note in parliament.  Recently, he has been in the media spotlight for attempting to aid a convicted international drug smuggler in returning to Canada after his extradition to the USA to face charges.  This can’t reflect well on his campaign in Surrey, a city with a bad reputation for crime already.

As far as early race indicators, his competition seems to be a new Conservative nominee, Sandeep Pandher.  The Hill Times reported a bit of a row over Pandher’s nomination as until 2006, he was a member of the Ontario Provincial Liberal Party.  The candidate contends that there is a difference between the provincial and federal parties, and I agree with him, but an Ontario Liberal is not a BC Liberal, whose tent holds many many federal Conservative supporters.

The other strike against him seems to be the fact that he isn’t really local.  If he was a member in Ontario until 2006 he can’t have even lived in BC longer than a few years.  A parachuted candidate may not have much of a chance unless this riding is really a party voter for Conservatives, and only elected Dhaliwal as a reaction.

Both candidates have littered the major roadways with signage already.  In several places, I have wondered if they are actually in breach of rules regarding sign proximity.  Some of them along 88th Avenue appear to obscure sightlines to their opponents’ signs.

I’ll be back with an update next week!