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July 9, 2004
Quadra clearly Owen's turf
PAT JOHNSON SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
This is the first article in an occasional series looking at
members of the new parliament and issues of concern to the Jewish
community.
On an election night filled with surprises, one of the most shocking
results was the runaway victory of Vancouver-Quadra's Liberal incumbent
Stephen Owen. The West Side riding, home to a large proportion of
British Columbia's Jewish community, was expected to be a squeaker.
Owen, minister of public works and government services, won the
riding by a relatively small margin in 2000 and, with the merging
of the two conservative parties and an experienced opponent facing
him, Owen was thought to be in the fight of his life.
Facing off against him was Conservative candidate Stephen Rogers,
scion of the B.C. sugar family and a veteran of Social Credit provincial
governments. Handicappers were giving Owen and Rogers even odds.
But as the votes from Quadra began coming in, it was obvious Owen
was the clear winner, with eventual totals giving Owen a two-to-one
lead.
Though he was bracing for a fight, Owen said he was getting very
good responses from voters on the street.
"We did a lot of mainstreeting," he said. "The response
was 50 per cent-plus positive."
In a riding that was a safe Tory bastion until former Liberal prime
minister John Turner wrested it away in 1984, this year's results
suggest Quadra is now Owen's to lose.
"I like to think I hope to think that it's because
I've been a really positive presence in the community," said
Owen. He also suggested the Conservatives misread Canadians' will.
"I think what was being suggested by the Conservatives was
a major reduction in the influence of the federal government, as
well as a very poor understanding of the role of the Supreme Court
of Canada and the Charter [of Rights and Freedoms]," said Owen,
adding that the Conservative approach on such fundamentals as multiculturalism
typified their missteps. "I think the Conservatives did get
out of step with some pretty central Canadian concepts of ourselves
and multiculturalism is one of them.
"The Liberal party with all its shortcomings, which every party
has, is the party of multiculturalism in this country," said
Owen. "It was Trudeau who brought in the multiculturalism act
in 1971 and actually constitutionalized it in the charter in 1982."
There is anger in Quadra, despite the numbers for the Liberal party,
Owen acknowledged, and some of it comes from the Jewish community.
"There has been a general unhappiness over the last number
of years, particularly with Canada's voting record in the [United
Nations] General Assembly," he said. Owen is a member of Liberal
Parliamentarians for Israel, which has attempted, he said, to improve
communication on both sides of the Middle East debate. "A number
of us have made a concerted effort to look for UN reform, so you
don't get the piling on Israel or any individual country through
one-sided resolutions. There probably is a recognition that I and
a number of people in the Liberal caucus have been very concerned
that our clear message of strong support for peace in the Middle
East and a high degree of respect for Israel's democracy and the
security risks it faces [be clearly expressed]."
Owen stressed that seeking fair treatment for Israel does not detract
from the legitimate rights of Palestinians.
"[Our goal is] not to do anything to diminish Canada's strong
support for a peaceful, secure, independent Palestinian state, but
to make sure we don't lose in that the strong message of friendship
for Israel and admiration for what it's achieved, even if the two
governments might differ on individual actions and policies,"
he said.
A foreign policy review is expected this fall, and Owen would like
to see a return to some of Canada's traditional areas of emphasis,
though he contests the idea that Canada has moved away from its
prominent history as a world peacekeeper.
"There's a bit of a misconception about us abandoning that
field," he said. "We're actually playing the logistical
role in a very effective way." Canadian experience in peackeeping,
he said, is being shared with Developing World countries through
Canadian leadership, if not in great numbers of soldiers.
Owen said that Canadian values can be exported along with our foreign
policy, citing as an example the "democracy clause" that
Canada forced to be included in the Free Trade Agreement of the
Americas. Under the clause, nations who seek membership in the free
trade zone would be required, in addition to employing fair labor
practices and meeting environmental standards, to attain fundamental
democratic criteria.
For the near future, Owen is optimistic that the minority Parliament
could remain quite stable. Owen said if the Liberals continue governing
"from the centre" with fiscal responsibility and socially
progressive policies that succeed in finding consensus among the
disparate parties in the House, this could prove to be a very productive
Parliament.
Howard Jampolsky, a member of the Jewish community who contested
the Conservative party nomination in Vancouver-South and campaigned
for Owen's opponent, Rogers, said he refuses to see the Conservatives'
99 seats as a failure.
"Four months ago, if someone had told me that we were going
to nail 99 seats, you'd say that's pretty ambitious isn't it?"
he said. Jampolsky, who is considering seeking a provincial Liberal
nomination for next May's vote, is sanguine about the failure of
pollsters to predict accurately the voters' mood.
"If the pundits were always right, we wouldn't need to have
elections," he said.
Pat Johnson is a Vancouver journalist and commentator.
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