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B.C. ElECtion 2013
Parties begin critical campaign Oak Bay-Gordon Head riding among the key battlegrounds Edward Hill News staff
Sharon Tiffin/News staff
Speed readers Victoria police Const. Kristen Greffard checks drivers’ speeds on Fernwood Road in front of Vic High, along with partner Const. Ryan Koropatiniski. The speed trap was set up last week in response to complaints by area residents that too many vehicles were exceeding the 30 km/h speed limit.
Victoria runner gets scare in Boston Travis Paterson News staff
If it wasn’t for a missed subway stop, a trio of Victoria residents would have been at the Boston Marathon finish line when two explosions occurred Monday. Fitness instructor Pam Glover, who teaches at Cedar Hill Recreation Centre, ran the marathon with a target of four hours and was redirected a half mile from the end within minutes of the finish. Her daughter Dana, Dana’s boyfriend Aztec King and friend Susan Rogers had all made their way to the finish line anticipating Pam’s arrival.
But the trio of supporters got off at the wrong subway station and were out of sight of the finish line at the time of the explosions, which occurred around noon Victoria time. At News press time, two people were reported dead and more than a hundred injured from the blasts. “They were minutes away and were trying to get to (the area) where the bomb hit, but got off the train a stop early,” Glover said of her supporters. “They were upset about that actually, so it’s like a miracle that none of us were there.” She heard the explosions during the last mile of her race, but had no idea what it was. “As I rounded the
final corner and could see the finish line, there was a barricade with policemen telling people to go away, and I’m thinking, ‘this is not the finish line.’ I know my time was right on, I was about two minutes from finishing.” Police told runners and spectators to head to the nearby river. A Good Samaritan gave Glover warm clothes and helped her get her bearings and connect with her family. “It was chaos,” Glover said. “This woman, she was my angel, all of a sudden she was by my side and said, “I’ll lead you to safety.” An expanded version of this story appears at vicnews.com. sports@vicnews.com
Greater Victoria saw three tight races between B.C. Liberal candidates and those representing the New Democrats in the 2009 provincial election. But as the writ dropped to officially begin the 2013 B.C. election campaign Tuesday, the leafy neighbourhoods of Oak Bay-Gordon Head were being touted as a key provincial election battleground. Adding to the drama in that upscale riding is the presence of a high-profile B.C. Green party newcomer, who threatens to turn it into a potential three-way race. In a region dominated by the B.C. NDP, veteran B.C. Liberal cabinet minister Ida Chong held on to her seat by 561 votes in 2009 to edge NDP hopeful Jessica Van der Veen. The two go head-to-head again, joined by Green candidate Andrew Weaver, a headline-making climate scientist from the University of Victoria. Whether Weaver and the Greens become a factor, pulling votes from the Liberals or NDP, is the question. UVic political science professor Jamie Lawson said that dynamic is a hard puzzle in a riding that includes some of the wealthiest postal codes in the region and has a large concentration of seniors. Weaver could play the spoiler for the NDP and split the vote to re-elect Chong for a fifth term – the race could be a “war between the non-Liberal parties and the centre-left,” Lawson said. “Ida Chong may (also) face a meltdown by the Liberals. If that’s true, (Liberal) voters may sit on their hands, or will choose between NDP and Greens,” he said. “Voting Green isn’t as scary for a pro-market voter who might usually vote Liberal, but who believes climate change exists.” It seems less likely for B.C. NDP supporters to migrate to Green, Lawson said, as the NDP vowed to shut down the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline, what he calls the “litmus test” for provincial environmental platforms.
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