Frankly Speaking

Langley voters made modern history by voting in a Liberal MP to represent them in one of the two Langley ridings. The last time that any portion of Langley was represented by a Liberal MP in Ottawa was 1953 – before most people were born. The Liberals have had little presence in the area since that time, although in 1968 there was renewed interest in the party when Pierre Trudeau was selected leader, and brought youth and vigour into a party which had been seen as largely the preserve of older men. Shortly after Trudeau was named party leader (and prime minister, as the Liberals were in power as a minority government under Lester Pearson), he called an election. As part of that campaign, he held a major rally at Fort Langley, likely the only time there has been a major political rally involving a Liberal prime minister in Langley’s history. So there is no shortage of irony that under Pierre Trudeau’s son Justin, the Liberals have won 17 seats in B.C. after a similar disp...

Another federal candidates' meeting, another missing Conservative candidate. I moderated a forum Monday in Aldergrove, which was organized by a number of seniors'  and veterans' groups. Candidates from the Langley-Aldergrove riding, which takes in most of Langley and a small portion of western Abbotsford, were invited to attend several weeks ago. Three of them showed up - Green Simmi Dhillon, NDP Margot Sangster and Liberal Leon Jensen. All gave detailed presentations of both their parties' platforms and their own views on numerous seniors' and veterans' issues, as well as topics like the Kinder Morgan pipeline. The 130 people or so in attendance were mostly seniors. Judging from their questions and conversations I had with a number of them afterwards, most were there to get more information about candidates, to help them decide who to vote for. There were few overt partisans of one candidate or another. Prominently missing was longtime Conservative MP Mar...