Riding high on NDP wish list

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 26/05/2003 (8430 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

IN 1999, Tory MLA Joy Smith beat the NDP in Fort Garry by just 30 votes.

It was the first time in years that the NDP had even come close in the riding. This time around, Premier Gary Doer wants to win it and he’s pulling out a lot of stops.

In fact, Fort Garry is so high on his wish list, he launched his entire re-election campaign there just minutes after dropping the writ on May 2. And he’s put his faith in Kerri Irvin-Ross, a Winnipeg social worker to win it.

Irvin-Ross faces off against Smith, Liberal Taran Malik and independent Didz Zuzens.

Smith is certain her reputation and record will put her back in the legislature, and believes her community work, including establishing a community mall walking program and opening a food bank in the back of her own constituency office, will resonate with voters.

A story Smith offered shows her affiliation with the Tory party isn’t well known. She said a family she helped agreed to have an NDP lawn sign put up but it wasn’t until it appeared out their front door that they realized Smith wasn’t an NDP.

She’s running her campaign out of an old Pembina Highway Burger King location, even using the drive-thru window as a gag to attract people. She has signs up offering drive-thru answers to people’s questions.

There are three main issues Smith believes will kill the NDP vote: School board amalgamation, letting the University of Manitoba off the hook for property taxes and the fact that Irvin-Ross isn’t a Fort Garry-ite.

Smith said Fort Garry parents are still angry about being forced to amalgamate with Assiniboine South into Pembina Trails.

And while she said she’s in favour of the U of M not paying property taxes like most post-secondary institutions in Canada, she said it shouldn’t be left only to the tax payers of Fort Garry to make up the difference.

But what Smith finds most perturbing is that Irvin-Ross, who she believes is her biggest competition, neither lives nor works in Fort Garry.

“It’s insulting,” Smith says. “You can’t just parachute somebody in here.”

When it’s pointed out that many MLAs don’t live in the ridings they represent, including Smith’s own party leader, Stuart Murray, she shrugs.

“Fort Garry is different,” she says.

Smith has lived in Fort Garry for more than 30 years. She raised her six children here and has no desire to go elsewhere.

Irvin-Ross can only say she’s looking to move to Fort Garry, and can and will represent the riding well.

Irvin-Ross believes Doer choosing Fort Garry to begin the campaign sent a strong message “that the NDP are fully confident in this riding. We have a strong team.”

The issue she hears about over and over on the doorstep is health care.

“They acknowledge that there’s been improvement but they want more,” she says, adding the NDP will deliver more.

She also said the university’s tax exemption “puts them in line with other institutions” and said Fort Garry’s ever burgeoning commercial tax base will make up the difference so homeowners aren’t hit with a huge bill.

Liberal candidate Malik, a retired school teacher who spent most of her years teaching in Transcona, is excited about the race.

Malik, who is currently the vice-president of the National Indo-Canadian Council, believes affordability for young people, education and health care, and the Liberals promises on both, will be her ticket to ride on June 3.

Malik said she thinks the NDP’s health care promises and lack of delivery will hurt them.

“(Voters) are tired of promises that have been made and not kept,” she said.

The Liberals used to be the party that challenged the Tories in Fort Garry. But in 1999 Ted Gilson received just over 11 per cent of the vote, more than 3,000 votes behind the NDP and Tories.

Zuzens has been an independent candidate in both provincial and federal elections. He ran in Minto in the 1999 Manitoba election and received 27 votes. In 2000, he ran federally in Winnipeg South and got 183 votes.

Fort Garry has a population of 20,383. It is bordered by Waverley Street on the west and the Red River in the east, and runs from Chancellor Matheson Road north to the mainline of the Canadian National railway.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca