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February 20, 2004
Two Jews to seek Tory seats
Josh Hauser and Howard Jampolsky will face party votes this March.
PAT JOHNSON SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
T wo members of Vancouver's Jewish community are fighting for the
chance to represent the Conservative party in the coming federal
election.
Joshua Hauser, a lawyer, is seeking the nomination for the newly
reunited party in Vancouver-Quadra, while Howard Jampolsky, a self-employed
exporter of industrial automation equipment, is hoping to run for
the Conservatives in Vancouver South. Both constituencies are currently
held by the Liberal party. Vancouver-Quadra MP Stephen Owen, minister
of public works and government services, is seeking re-election.
Vancouver South-Burnaby MP Herb Dhaliwal (whose riding name and
boundaries are changing slightly) was dropped from cabinet by the
new Prime Minister Paul Martin and is not seeking re-election.
The Conservative party will hold their nomination meetings for both
ridings in the last two weeks of March, about the time when the
Conservative party selects the leader who will carry its message
into the campaign, after which many observers predict Martin will
call a federal election. Both Hauser and Jampolsky face competition
for their nominations, but the two men's candidacies represent a
marked resurgence of interest in elective politics in the Jewish
community, which has produced few candidates for public office from
British Columbia in recent decades.
Both men are religiously observant and have been active in various
aspects of the Jewish and general communities.
The 44-year-old Hauser was born in Boston and is a dual citizen
of Canada and the United States. He met his wife, Vancouverite Kimberly
Jones, while working on a kibbutz in Israel. The couple has two
boys, ages five and eight. He has served on numerous boards, including
those of Schara Tzedeck Synagogue and the Canadian Zionist Federation
and is currently a member of the board of the Jewish Federation
of Greater Vancouver.
Central to Hauser's campaign is democratic reform and good stewardship
of public money, he said. Parliamentary reforms introduced by the
new Liberal government could be a step in the right direction, bringing
more free votes and greater power for backbench members of Parliament,
said Hauser, but he maintains a doubtfulness that the promises will
develop into significant, lasting reform of the governing process.
Financial mismanagement should be a top concern for voters, Hauser
added, noting that one can be in favor of or opposed to government
initiatives like the gun registry, but all Canadians should demand
that such programs operate in accordance with standard accounting
practices.
On foreign affairs, Hauser said his commitment to Zionism is significant,
but not unquestioning.
"I would be quite a strong voice for Israel in Ottawa,"
Hauser said. "I'm not knee-jerk pro-Israel, but I think Israel
has been doing, generally, the things it should be doing."
Hauser, a business law specialist in private practice, is strongly
opposed to what he calls "judicial activism," which he
credits with legalizing gay marriage, a decision Hauser believes
should have been left to Parliament. He is neither staunchly opposed
to gay marriage nor in favor of it, he said.
"I'm open-minded on every issue," he said. "[But]
no one's convinced me yet that Canada would be better off with gay
marriage."
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which has been in effect for
two decades now, leaves too much open to judicial interpretation,
Hauser argued.
"I like laws that are crisp and clean and then I like them
clearly enforced," he said, adding that Canadians have ceded
too much authority to their judiciary.
"We should respect our judges as a starting point, but we shouldn't
respect them blindly," he said. "They're making decisions
that they're not authorized to make."
Judicial activism should be of particular concern to the Jewish
community, Hauser added.
"I think Jews should always be concerned where a small group
of people makes the law," he said.
Abortion policy has been an area of particular interest to Hauser.
"Judaism is extraordinarily pro-life," said Hauser, adding
that the Jewish perspective on abortion is deeply nuanced, taking
into account extenuating circumstances that do not fit into the
black-white dichotomy that tends to define the abortion issue in
North America generally.
Being an immigrant, Hauser said, means he may not be conversant
in some aspects of this country's political history, but he can
confront problems with fresh eyes.
"It gives me a little bit of a different perspective,"
he said. "In some ways, I see how things run and how they could
be better."
Hauser believes the Conservative party has a good shot at winning
Vancouver-Quadra, which was a Conservative stronghold until 1984,
when former prime minister John Turner won the seat for the Liberals.
The 39-year-old Jampolsky, who hopes to take back Vancouver-South
for the Conservatives, entered the political realm at a young age,
seeking Non-Partisan Association nominations for the Vancouver park
board in 1986 and for Vancouver city council in 1993. A graduate
of Eric Hamber high school in Vancouver, Jampolsky has lived in
the city his entire life, except for his time at the University
of Victoria. Jampolsky's family – father Abe and late mother
Lydia – were deeply involved in various Jewish and general
community organizations, including the Jewish National Fund and
Beth Israel Synagogue. Jampolsky began attending services at Louis
Brier Home and Hospital when his mother was living in the facility,
and still davens there and at Eitz Chaim Synagogue in Richmond,
where he lives. He and his wife, Marla, have two girls, ages six
and three. He plays in the Jewish hockey league.
Jampolsky has staked out justice issues as central to his campaign.
He proposes minimum (rather than maximum) sentences for criminal
convictions, more severe penalties for people convicted of assaults
on seniors, children and women and tougher parole requirements.
"I want criminals to think about what they're doing before
they do it," said Jampolsky.
Jampolsky also recognizes that Vancouver-South is one of Canada's
most diverse ridings, with large Indo-Canadian, Chinese-Canadian
and other ethnic groups represented. Like Hauser, however, Jampolsky
said his view of some issues, such as abortion and gay marriage,
are deeply infused with his identity as a Jew.
"I am pro-choice with limits," said Jampolsky, arguing
that the decision on abortion should be between a woman and her
doctor, up to the point where the fetus is viable outside the womb
without significant medical intervention, after which point abortion
should be limited to cases where the mother's life is endangered.
Generally, though, Jampolsky argued the role of government in the
abortion question should be as limited as possible.
"I can't tell [women] what to do and I wouldn't try,"
he said. "We have to respect people's crises, dilemmas and
viewpoints."
But he mooted options like limiting the numbering of abortions an
individual could have and suggested that a solution to the controversy
over gay marriage might be removing federal jurisdiction over marriage
and turning it over to religious institutions.
"I have a fairly traditional view of marriage, it's a man and
a woman," he said, adding that he supports the concept of same-sex
civil unions.
Jampolsky borrowed a page from Pierre Trudeau's book, stating, "What
people do in their bedrooms is of no concern to me."
He is opposed to the four-pillar drug strategy adopted by the federal
and Vancouver governments, saying people need places where they
can get off drugs, not places where they can shoot up.
On the Middle East, Jampolsky said, members of the Jewish community
could depend on him as a voice in support of Israel in Parliament.
"Canada voted in support of a number of [United Nations] resolutions
that have been anti-Semitic," Jampolsky said. "I would
stand up in the House of Commons and ask why."
He said the Liberal party has had a lock on Jewish voters for too
long and said the governing party takes Jewish votes for granted.
Pat Johnson is a native Vancouverite, a journalist and
commentator.
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