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“It suggests Mr. Trudeau sees B.C. as an important battleground,” Harrison said of the prime minister’s appearance with Liberal candidate Tamara Taggart, the former CTV Vancouver news anchor seeking to unseat incumbent Don Davies in the NDP stronghold of Vancouver Kingsway.

Trudeau and Taggart held a rally for the Vancouver-Kingsway riding’s Liberal faithful at the Italian Cultural Centre in the heart of the riding.

Taggart told the crowd she believed the Liberals had brought about real change to what matters most to Canadians.

“We can’t afford to go backward with Andrew Scheer,” she said. She said the Conservative leader has been wrong on women’s reproductive and LGBTQ2+ rights, and has no plan for the economy and to improve the environment.

“Andrew Scheer will pull us back into the Harper years, and that’s not the kind of Canada where everyone gets ahead.”

Trudeau then crossed the stage to his campaign song, One Hand Up by The Strumbellas. The crowed chanted “Justin” and he embraced local candidates. He warmly introduced Taggart as “a woman who has pledged to use her voice to help those who need it most.”

“Tamara is a fierce advocate for women’s rights and she knows the importance of giving back to this community,” he said. “She’s smart, she’s compassionate and she’s exactly the kind of person who should be representing the people of Vancouver-Kingsway.”

Taggart, in winning the Liberal nomination, had said her “family’s life is in the riding,” though she lives one block outside of it, but Davies, on Wednesday, zeroed in on that fact.