All five candidates were asked what the biggest issues were this election.

Maple-Ridge-Mission Riding

About the riding:

Maple Ridge-Mission has been a hard-fought-over riding over the last two elections, and the B.C. election this May 9 promises the same drama.

That’s evident in the presence of leader NDP John Horgan, who’s visited the riding three times so far, to shore up support in what the party thinks is a winnable riding.

Not to be outdone, Liberal leader Christy Clark visited Marc Dalton’s campaign office on Thursday to rally the troops for the next three weeks.

Dalton is trying for a third term as Liberal MLA, while NDP candidate Bob D’Eith is in his second major race, after trying to win Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge for the NDP in the 2015 federal election.

While Dalton won the 2013 election by a 1,497 votes over then-NDP candidate Mike Bocking, the 2009 election was tighter, with Dalton squeaking to victory with only a 64-vote margin.

In 2013, the Green party collected 1,818 votes in Maple Ridge-Mission.

The Conservative party had 1,190 votes that year.

Green candidate Peter Tam doesn’t think his party will hurt the NDP vote this year.

“It’s [the Green party] not seen as either left or right.”

He said the party appeals to all political spectrums, and that there are other ridings where the Green party has hurt the Liberal vote.

With the Green party now sitting at 22 per cent province-wide, Tam is feeling good about the prospects for this election.

“This election, we have a totally different party, a totally different leader, a totally different platform.”

Campaign funds and the number of volunteers are 10 times what they were last election, he added.

D’Eith said the NDP does consider Maple Ridge-Mission a battleground riding and that party headquarters are helping where they can, and that it’s exciting to get Horgan out to the riding.

“He knows that we can win this, and whatever they can do to help, they are.”

He said the main thing he’s focusing on is just getting people out to vote. Some people don’t even know there’s an election on, he said.

“We’re fighting for every vote,” said John Cameron, campaign manager for Marc Dalton.

Cameron has run a dozen campaigns in the Metro Vancouver area.

“We’re actually working pretty hard. Everybody is on the same page.”

Boundaries:

Maple Ridge-Mission is one of the ridings that splits the City of Maple Ridge into two, with main street downtown, 224th Street, the dividing line.

To the west, it’s Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows, and on the east side of 224th Street, it’s Maple Ridge-Mission.

The boundary runs north along 224th Street to Abernethy Way, jogs north at 237th Street and swings east on Fern Crescent, now becoming the border into Golden Ears Provincial Park. The eastern border of Maple Ridge-Mission is Cedar Street, which means that the riding does to the municipality of Mission what it does to the City of Maple Ridge – cut it in two.

Looking at the poll numbers, the NDP does well in blue-collar Mission voting areas, as well as the western areas in Maple Ridge. But the Liberals are strong in central Maple Ridge, in the suburbs along Kanaka Way and Albion and Thornhill.

Size:

The area of the riding is 3,93 sq. kilometres.

Candidates:

Candidates were asked to outline three issues they feel are most important in the riding this election.

• Marc Dalton (Liberals):

This election is about our kids: are we going to spend within our means, or are we going to leave them with our bills to pay?

The B.C. Liberals believe in balancing the budget, and keeping taxes low so families can spend their money the way they want to. The B.C. Liberal plan is based on creating a strong economy, with good jobs, that secures a bright future for B.C.’s children and grandchildren.

Strong economies generate revenues that our government can and does use to deliver services. This is a solid long-term strategy.

This election is about strong local representation: Dalton said he stood up [voters] when it was clear that residents opposed a low-barrier shelter at the Quality Inn or by a nearby daycare. He helped block those sites and has worked hard on this issue to find solutions that work for Maple Ridge.

He also said a new elementary school in Albion is exciting news, one that he raised in Victoria for some time. He also fought for school bus funding. He fought for another ambulance and got it.

He also helped to obtain a new MRI machine for Ridge Meadows Hospital and four-laning between Maple Ridge and Mission.

• Bob D’Eith (NDP):

“I have been listening to the residents of Maple Ridge and Mission. Affordability, cuts to services and homelessness are three areas that come up time and again. Christy Clark has made life less affordable and has cut important services in our community.

John Horgan and the B.C. NDP will make life more affordable by removing the Golden Ears and Port Mann bridge tolls, freezing Hydro rates, eliminating MSP premiums and creating a $10-a-day childcare program.

We will invest in our public schools, properly funding classrooms and school equipment. We will increase funding to our health care system, including much needed seniors care and urgent care centres.

The B.C. NDP is committed to creating a poverty reduction plan and developing new facilities on the Riverview lands for mental health and addiction treatment services to help solve our homeless crisis.

• Peter Tam (Green Party):

Economic growth: Maple Ridge and Mission has tremendous potential for small business, startups, and emerging technologies. We need to create an innovative environment to foster growth and be a global leader in the new economy.

We have the perfect setting to attract skilled entrepreneurs and green technology investments.

We need forward thinking leadership and the political will to reduce bureaucratic hurdles, provide tax incentives, and work with our local and federal governments to encourage the establishment of these job sustaining industries that would include agricultural, to energy, to resource to IT sector.

Education: The well-being of children is my top priority. Fostering a healthy, nurturing environment from is vital to our future.

In addition, secondary education needs to change to enable students to study online and under apprenticeship programs to train and retrain workers for the emerging technologies sectors.

As we modernize our educational institutions and childcare programs, we will encourage early and life-long education and skills training. We also need increased funding for our Youth Wellness Centre to be immediately available when youth need help.

Housing: Maple Ridge and Mission vacancy rates are low. We need to work with cities to establish at long-term housing plan with increased density and transit in the downtown core.

Together with the federal government, we need to invest in affordable housing. We should establish tax incentives to investors and developers to create affordable private rental housing. We should tax real estate speculators and close loopholes for money laundering to help cool down the speculation that has been eroding affordability.

• Trevor Hamilton (Conservatives):

I believe individuals and their free associations within their respective communities, when fully empowered with the necessary financial and executive authority, are far more capable of solving their own issues than a distant, central government whose first priority is maintaining power.

Many of the problems our communities face are attributable in no small part to the overreach of central governments and the truly bad policy that has followed. This has resulted not only in the dis-empowerment of communities regarding their own fate, but has left them holding the bag with little to no resources with which to compensate.

The first measure, if elected, I would propose would be to remove the power of the party whip and restore MLA autonomy. MLAs and MPs have become little more than public announcement vehicles, merely informing us of the next policy to be imposed upon us, public input be darned. We have lost our voice, our say and our seat at the table to the authority of political parties over our elected representatives, who, under fear for their jobs, their pay and their reputations, are forced to ignore their constituents and toe the party line, informing us of what is to be rather than taking our issues to the government.

Maintaining the fundamental public institutions that serve to facilitate a free and open society is another issue.

Homelessness, drug addiction and all the dangers inherent within are a rampant, ever increasing blight upon both Maple Ridge and Mission and are easily alleviated with some institutional restoration. We sit in an ideal situation – with a vast swath of wilderness smack in the middle of our two towns – to construct new, user-friendly mental health and rehabilitation facilities in order to get people off the streets and the help they need to become contributing members of society.

Lastly, with recent population growth predictions, we are going to need to not only continue improving and expanding the Lougheed Highway, but other essential infrastructure, as well. First and foremost are our reservoirs. There is absolutely no reason that in a region surrounded by glaciers, rivers, streams and lakes, where it rains nearly 300 days out of the year, that two weeks of sunshine causes water shortages and restrictions.

• Jeff Monds (Libertarian):

Looking at all 26 B.C. Crown corporations with a view to privatizing most, if not all. At the least, there should be private competition with the Crown corporations. Many jurisdictions around the world provide full private auto insurance and private liquor distribution and retail sales which meet the needs of customers. If increasing the number of Crown corporations was desirable to create prosperity, then countries like Venezuela and Cuba would be dynamic wealth generators.

I’d like to work vigorously to create economic freedom as there is a great correlation between economic freedom and prosperity. Libertarians will eliminate supply management (a policy involving the price of milk, eggs and chicken – which costs the average family $400 annually), drastically reduce taxes, and eliminate intra-provincial trade barriers. Absolutely, we will allow companies like Uber to operate in B. C. By enacting these different policies, our province will become a magnet for business entrepreneurs who will gravitate to B. C. and thereby greatly stimulate job creation.

Direct RCMP to use discretion and refrain from enforcing federal drug laws and, instead, focus on real crimes. Police can tremendously cut gangsters’ money, power, and influence. This is something which Law Enforcement Against Prohibition has been advocating for many years now.