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Opinion: Delta is a battleground

With 42 federal ridings in B.C., Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer had plenty of options when he kicked off the party’s B.C. campaign earlier this month, so the fact he chose to do so in Delta speaks volumes.
scheer and corbet
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer and Delta Conservative candidate Tanya Corbet are pictured at an event held at Tsawwassen Springs earlier this month.

With 42 federal ridings in B.C., Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer had plenty of options when he kicked off the party’s B.C. campaign earlier this month, so the fact he chose to do so in Delta speaks volumes.

In the area for a celebration of life for long-time Conservative MP Mark Warawa, Scheer had a choice of more than 20 Lower Mainland ridings to host the launch party, but did so at Tsawwassen Springs, giving Delta Conservative candidate Tanya Corbet a boost in the process.

The Conservatives, who hold more than 80 per cent of seats in Alberta and Saskatchewan, but only eight of B.C.’s 42 ridings, have to do much better in this province if Scheer and Co. are to wrest power from the Liberals. They need to reclaim seats in B.C. and it’s clear they look at Delta as one of those they feel they can win back.

The Delta riding also offers the Conservatives a very real opportunity to elect an Indigenous MP as Corbet is a proud member of the Tsawwassen First Nation. Corbet’s extensive community involvement makes her a worthy candidate regardless of ethnicity, but it can’t be overlooked that of the record 10 Indigenous MPs elected to the House of Commons in 2015, none carried Conservative colours. To be fair, the party did have four Indigenous MPs during the final term of the Stephen Harper government.

It’s hard to compare numbers given riding boundaries are regularly altered, but South Delta voters had been represented by a right-of-centre MP from the early 1970s up until 2015 when Liberal Carla Qualtrough posted a convincing victory in the reconfigured riding of Delta. Largely unknown prior to that election, Qualtrough has since become a key member of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet and is well respected throughout the community.

A Qualtrough-Corbet showdown looms this fall in what Scheer acknowledged is a battleground riding as the incumbent’s record and reputation will go up against a voting history that favours the challenger.

It’s a good bet we’ll see the Conservative leader again in these parts (and likely the prime minister too) before we go to the polls as it’s become abundantly clear that Delta is far more than just one of the 338 ridings up for grabs this October.