Canada is heading to the polls. On Sunday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper put to rest days of speculation with his formal request to Governor General David Johnston to dissolve Parliament, triggering an election cycle that will conclude Oct. 19. This campaign will be almost twice as long as previous ones and much is at stake. While recent public opinion polls have the Conservatives making up lost ground to Thomas Mulcair’s NDP, it remains to be seen how things will ultimately play out come voting day. Every seat will count, and in B.C., which gained six new ridings, there are several emerging battlegrounds that could prove decisive for either of the three main parties. What is this election about? Pollsters, candidates and experts are in agreement that much of what British Columbians are talking about centres on issues relating to leadership, the environment, child care, affordability and the economy. These are issues that are particular pressing in many of the Lower Mainland ridings, where two- and even three-way races are shaping up. Here are some of the key ridings to watch: BURNABY-NORTH SEYMOUR A dynamic new riding that includes a slice of the traditionally held NDP stronghold of Burnaby (taken from Kennedy Stewart’s old riding) and a portion of Conservative-leaning North Vancouver. Had this riding existed in the 2011 election, many would have predicted a Conservative win. Times, however, have changed, and Kinder Morgan’s plan to twin its Trans Mountain pipeline, which would drastically increase tanker traffic along the riding’s shores, has emerged as a major issue. Green candidate Lynne Quarmby, an SFU professor who was one of dozens of protesters arrested during last year’s anti-pipeline protests on Burnaby Mountain, has considerable name recognition. But can she convince traditional NDP supporters to take a chance on the Greens? NDP candidate Carol Baird Ellan, a retired judge, will argue against splitting the vote, which would only benefit the Conservatives’ Mike Little. Liberal candidate Terry Beech is the long shot in what should prove a tight race. VANCOUVER-SOUTH The Liberals are betting Harjit Sajjan, a lieutenant-colonel in the Canadian Armed Forces with combat experience, will be able to reclaim the seat they lost in 2011, when Conservative candidate Wai Young knocked off incumbent Ujjal Dosanjh by a couple thousand votes. The riding, which boasts one of the largest immigrant populations in B.C., has historically shifted between the Conservatives and Liberals, making this race, on paper at least, a two-way sprint between those two parties. Recent polling, however, has placed Young, who came under fire for making embarrassing public comments a while back, in third place. The NDP were polling second even before they named their candidate, Amandeep Nijjar, meaning this contest could produce an upset. VANCOUVER-GRANVILLE Another new seat in a dynamic area of Vancouver made up of portioned off sections of two Liberal ridings, an NDP riding and a Conservative riding to the south. The Liberals are confident their star candidate Jody Wilson-Raybould, a former Crown prosecutor and the former regional chief of the B.C. Assembly of First Nations, will turn the riding red. The NDP, however, have their own star in community activist Mira Oreck, a director of the Broadbent Institute, who was raised in the riding.

The seat incorporates the newly densified areas of Cambie and Oak streets, as well as a major portion of the Broadway corridor, making transit one of the key issues for residents. Child care and affordability are other issues candidates are championing. The Conservative challenger is Erinn Broshko, a lawyer and businessman. Another race to keep an eye on, if just for name recognition, is Vancouver-East, where former NDP MLA Jenny Kwan will vie for the seat held by long-serving NDP MP Libby Davies, who announced her retirement earlier this year. Expect Kwan’s challengers to rehash her past connection to the Portland Hotel Society scandal. SOUTH SURREY-WHITE ROCK-CLOVERDALE Dianne Watts, Surrey’s former long-serving mayor, is considered a shoo-in for this Conservative stronghold. Considered a lock for cabinet, it will be interesting, however, to see how Watts fares in the event of a Conservative defeat. Regardless of whether she becomes part of a government or an opposition, expect Watts to emerge as the Conservatives’ top B.C. lieutenant, a position made vacant by the departing James Moore. Two other Surrey races to watch are Fleetwood-Port Kells, where the NDP’s Garry Begg, a retired RCMP inspector, will aim to knock off the Conservatives’ Nina Grewal; and Surrey-Newton, a redrawn boundary, where incumbent Jinny Sims (Newton-North Delta) will face a determined Sukh Dhaliwal, who previously held the riding. Their Conservative challenger is Harpreet Singh. Over the years, Newton-North Delta has been held by all the three major parties by slim majorities. SAANICH-GULF ISLANDS In the 2011 election, Saanich-Gulf Islands swung from Conservative to the Green Party when voters sent the first Green MP, party leader Elizabeth May, to Ottawa when she beat out a Conservative cabinet minister. Could the Conservatives, who governed under their own banner or as Reform or Alliance since 1993, win it back if the riding is caught up in the NDP swing and the left vote splits or May’s gaffe comes back to haunt her? “I don’t know, but my hunch is that Eliizabeth May will win again,” said UBC political science professor Richard Johnson. “I don’t think either the NDP or the Greens would want to see the Conservatives back in.” In over six decades the riding has elected non-Conservative candidates only three times. In the last election, May (31,890 votes) ousted Gary Lunn (25,544 votes) with support from previous Liberal voters. She won 36 per cent of the vote, while the Liberals’ candidate lost 33 per cent from the previous election; Lunn also lost eight percentage points. But last spring, May embarrassed herself with a rambling, angry and profanity-laden speech at the annual press gallery dinner in Ottawa, and political analysts told the CBC the speech would become part of her political legacy and hurt her and the party. Even though she apologized, excusing her awkward performance as an attempt at humour and sleeplessness combined with cold medication, the image remains of her ranting for 10 minutes and being ushered offstage by Transport Minister Lisa Raitt. Johnson said it likely wouldn’t hurt her in the next election because “she’s a perfect fit for the riding,” which he said is suspicious of urbanites and is solidly middle-class.

The riding’s boundary is changing slightly, with it losing a small urbanized portion of Saanich, but it still relies heavily on its base of wealthy seniors. And it captures university students who live near the University of Victoria. In addition to May, Tim Kane is the declared Liberal candidate. COURTENAY-ALBERNI Courtenay-Alberni is a new riding created from Nanaimo-Alberni and Vancouver Island North, both of which elected Conservatives in 2011: James Lunney, now an independent, and John Duncan, respectively. And Elections Canada shows that if the votes from the old ridings are transposed to the new ones, the Conservatives would remain ahead in both. But an anti-tanker group called the Dogwood Initiative released a poll showing 33 per cent of voters in the riding — which includes Parksville, Qualicum Beach, Courtenay, Port Alberni, Tofino, Ucluelet and Denman and Hornby Islands — would vote NDP in the next election, compared to 23 per cent for the Conservatives. And UBC professor Johnson said the resource-rich northern part of Vancouver has traditionally voted NDP. That changed in 1993 when the Reform candidate won, “to the shock of everybody.” The New Democrat candidates in 2011 in both old ridings finished second, within between 2,000 and 5,000 votes. Late last month, the federal government rained money down on Vancouver Island, including funds for improvements to the Parksville conference centre, Port Alberni recycling depot and Ucluelet skateboard park, leading some pundits to call it “Christmas in July,” according to a report in the Alberni Valley Times. ESQUIMALT-JUAN DE FUCA The New Democrats took the south Vancouver Island riding in 2011, when Randall Garrison won the seat held for almost 20 years by Liberal Keith Martin (who has in the past also run or sat as a Conservative, independent, Alliance and Reform) after he retired. But Garrison beat Conservative candidate Troy DeSouza by just 406 votes and the third-place Liberal candidate Lillian Szpak was well behind. The riding is affected by the redistribution of boundaries and UBC's Johnson predicted the new riding — which includes Saanich, Langford, Esquimalt, Colwood, Sooke, View Royal and Metchosin — will vote orange with the rest of Vancouver Island. “The NDP will sweep the island,” he said. “The surge of the NDP is widely enough reflected in all the polls to suggest there’s something there. At this point, the NDP won’t likely lose any ground to the Liberals” on the island. But he said whether polls are a reliable indicator of the election’s outcome depends on “whether or not the polls get the support for the Conservatives right. There are fewer people voting Conservative, but how many fewer?” KAMLOOPS-THOMPSON-CARIBOO Formerly Kamloops-Thompson, this riding is three-quarters within the city of Kamloops and has been Conservative since at least 2004. The seat is held now by Cathy McLeod, a former nurse and the former mayor of Pemberton, for the Conservatives. But the mostly working-class riding — mining, milling and smelting — was an NDP stronghold in the 1970s and 1980s, said Johnson. “It’s not teetering on the brink like the Vancouver Island ridings,” he said, but could be vulnerable.