Let’s do this!

… I really wish I’d attended the all-candidates meeting on April 15th. That would make this a lot easier.

Elaine Allan — Conservative Party of Canada

https://vancouvercentre.conservativeeda.ca/

I haven’t been able to dig up much information about her. Her campaign website has blog posts, but they seem to be a Conservative Party feed. Her Twitter feed is mostly politics-related retweets and posts, not responses. I did a quick search for any culture war terms and I couldn’t find anything.

Sigh, alright. I can’t just write her off, even though I’m leery about the Tories in general.

Pluses

• She gives a shout-out to the riding’s history in the AIDS crisis.
• She used to volunteer at WISH Drop In Centre, which supports sex workers.
• She seems totally sane.

Minuses

• She worked in Silicon Valley for a bit. It’s become clear these days that Silicon Valley politics aren’t the progressive hippie utopia we used to assume they were.
• She skipped the all-candidates meeting.

Here’s a Georgia Straight interview from 2015. She’s been running for the Conservatives for a long time. Apparently someone from ABC Vancouver tried to get the nomination this year, but Allan held on.

And that’s pretty much all I can find about her.

Summary: She seems totally reasonable. I have no reason to believe she wouldn’t be a good MP.

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Hedy Fry — Liberal Party of Canada

https://hedyfry.com

She is the dragon everyone else is trying to slay. She defeated Kim Campbell — then Prime Minister of Canada — back in 1993¹, and since then she’s been re-elected nine times.

Pluses

• One of the first things she did in politics, back in the 1990s, was pushing to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to add sexual orientation as a prohibited ground for discrimination, because of her experience as a doctor during the AIDS epidemic.
• She’s very visible in the local community.
• She’s an experienced politician.
• Her Twitter account is one of the better politician Twitter accounts, IMO. She seems like a real person! She tweets stuff that she seems to believe! Honestly, scrolling through her Twitter feed makes me like her.

Minuses

• She’s eighty-four years old. She seems sharp and current on things, but gerontocracy isn’t good.
• No-one should hold a seat for thirty years.
• She said people were burning crosses in Prince George. I can’t confirm it, but I vaguely remember hearing she’d mixed up Prince George, BC, with Prince George’s County, Maryland. I was living in Prince George at the time.

Here’s her article on Wikipedia. She gave an interview last year to Ron Fairfon about her career.

Summary: I said Allan would be fine. Hedy Fry is clearly on another level.

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Avi Lewis — New Democratic Party

https://www.voteavi.ca/

I first heard of this guy via YouTube ads, which started before the election was announced. Otherwise I don’t know much about him. Let’s find things out.

Dude has an impressive CV. He was a journalist for 25 years for various outlets like the CBC, City TV, and Al Jazeera²; he’s made documentaries about climate change and worker-owned factories in Argentina; he participated in the Leap Manifesto; and now he’s teaching Climate Justice and Documentary Film at UBC.

His website updates are great. He posted about the recent municipal by-election. He reposted an article he wrote for the Breach about progressive steps we can take in response to Trump’s trade war .

Pluses:

• Dude seems awesome. Researching him took me from “Who’s this guy?” to “Hey, maybe I should get a sign.”
• He wants us to change for the better.

Minuses:

• I quibble with some of his ideas. Like, instead of capping food prices, let’s break up Loblaws.

His Wikipedia article.

Summary: He might’ve gotten my vote. Let’s keep on looking…

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Scott MacDonald — Green Party of Canada

https://www.greenparty.ca/en/candidate/donald-scott-macdonald

This might be the worst candidate website so far. His candidate statement is good, but everything else looks managed by the Green Party. But it’s unfair to judge someone based on his website; let’s look closer…

I tried. There’s almost nothing about him online. I hope he was the lead physician interviewed in this article about weaning people off heroin. I hope he’s not the Scott MacDonald selling condos in the Okanagan. He has an Instagram, but there’s only one post about his campaign. Again, I should’ve gone to the all-candidates meeting.

Pluses:

• I like the Greens, generally?
• He’s probably OK, right?

Minuses:

• He’s a ghost.

Summary: OK, I know these days it’s easy to ignore the candidates and focus on the party leader and platform. But I need something.

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Drew William McPherson — Independent

Nope.

I googled this guy. The number one result is about a conviction for vehicular manslaughter. A few links later I found his profile on a website that seems to be entirely edge lord conspiracy thinking. It’s corroding my brain.

Summary: No.

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Christopher Varga — People’s Party of Canada

https://www.peoplespartyofcanada.ca/candidate/chris-varga

There’s not a tonne of information online about him. I ended up skimming an interview he had with another PPC candidate.

I’m not sure what to say about this guy. He seems like a totally reasonable guy who exists in a different world than I do. I wonder if his take on Trump has changed since this interview was given.

Summary: Not for me. Hopefully not for many people.

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Final thoughts

This was an unexpectedly wild ride. If we had ranked voting, here’s who I’d pick:

1. Avi Lewis. I think we need change, and I think he’d try to improve things.
2. Hedy Fry. I have my criticisms, but she keeps winning for good reason.
3. Scott MacDonald. Mostly because the Greens align better with my personal politics.
4. Elaine Allan. At least she’d be a reasonable candidate.