For as long as most people can remember, federal elections in these parts have been over before the campaigning even gets underway, a situation that could change as soon as next year.
Various incarnations of right-of-centre parties have ruled here for more than three decades, most often with a veritable stranglehold on the riding. Former Conservative cabinet minister Tom Siddon cruised to re-election in 1984 with a 20,000-vote margin while the popular John Cummins, one of the original Reformers, held sway for almost 20 years. Current Tory MP Kerry-Lynne Findlay carried on the tradition in 2011 by capturing 54 per cent of the popular vote, a whopping 15,000 votes clear of her closest pursuer.
With another federal election set for next year, that right-of-centre dominance will face its sternest test in a long time thanks to a redrawing of Canada's electoral map and a changing of the political landscape across the country.
Rather than being grouped with the overflow in Richmond, Ladner and Tsawwassen will join North Delta to create the federal riding of Delta, only the second time the municipality will be a constituency of its own. The new map means dropping right wing Richmond and replacing it with a much more middle-of-the-road North Delta, which has been represented by all three major parties over the last decade, including the NDP at the moment.
With a second place showing in Delta-Richmond East and a victory in Newton-North Delta last time, the New Democrats must be welcoming the realignment, but I suspect it will be the Liberals who benefit most.
An afterthought with many federal voters thanks to a couple of underwhelming leadership choices in recent years, the Grits are well positioned this time around with charismatic Justin Trudeau now at the helm.
Throw in a looming expiration date for a Stephen Harper government rocked by scandals, Senate and otherwise, and it appears Trudeau's Liberals are poised to make huge inroads. Couple that with a strong local candidate, somebody like Bruce McDonald, the longtime civic councillor who is also vice-president of the Liberal constituency association, and you've got the makings of a horse race in the brand new riding.
I'm not so sure all of it would have been enough had the electoral map stayed status quo, but the new landscape means a federal election campaign will, for the first time in decades, get underway without a winner already having been chosen.
