Libs fight for Langara

PAT JOHNSON SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN

A tempest is emerging in the battle to replace Liberal MLA Val Anderson in the riding of Vancouver-Langara. The riding, one of a few in the province with a substantial Jewish constituency, is one of the safest Liberal seats in the province.

So the nomination to replace Anderson, a United Church minister who is retiring after a 13-year career in the provincial house, is shaping up as a particularly hard-fought one. It has gained early notice because two former political allies are facing off against each other. Sandy McCormick and Jennifer Clarke, both former city councillors who served together under the Non-Partisan Association (NPA) banner, are competing for the nomination. Both were defeated in the last civic election, McCormick in her race for a second term, Clarke in a failed effort to replace Philip Owen as mayor. Howard Jampolsky, a business operator and an active member of the Jewish community, is also running, as is former riding association president Howard Leong.

For McCormick, the race has provided an opportunity to renew connections with the Jewish community, into which she was born. McCormick says she is now a Christian and serves on the board of St. Stephen's United Church. However, her parents, the late Max and Rita Kass, were members of Schara Tzedeck synagogue and well known in the Jewish community. They operated a business on Robson Street for many years, officially called Rainbow Produce, but known to all, says McCormick, simply as "the butter and egg store."

McCormick acknowledges she doesn't know whether her status as a former Jew will help or hurt her in the race, but noted she does not see a fundamental shift of values in her affiliation with the United Church.

"I was born and raised Jewish, but married outside the faith," said McCormick.

"I certainly believe in the Ten Commandments," she said, adding that the values with which she was raised continue to be the values that motivate her.

McCormick criticizes two of her opponents, Clarke and Jampolsky, who do not live in the riding. McCormick lives in the riding and says she has spent "90 per cent" of her life there. She also asserted as an example of family values the fact that she waited until her children were adults before running for provincial office.

"I would not have contemplated spending a lot of time in Victoria when I still had kids in school," she said.

The issues McCormick is stressing in her campaign for the nomination include transit. She supports rapid transit on the Cambie corridor and mitigation of buses in residential Marpole.

She said she would be honored to represent the provincial Liberal party, adding that she decided to run for provincial office while she was a Vancouver school trustee, because she was appalled at the way the then-NDP government imposed a "stranglehold of collective agreements" on local school districts.

"I was very unhappy with the way the NDP government did things," she said. McCormick announced her candidacy for the nomination some months ago and characterized Clarke's more recent entry as opportunistic. While McCormick acknowledged that the NPA's landslide defeat in the 2002 civic election was significant, McCormick said Clarke's role at the top of the ticket means Clarke bears more responsibility for the defeat than McCormick.

"I don't think I was at the forefront of anything during the civic election," said McCormick. Several attempts to reach Clarke were unsuccessful.

Jampolsky, a Richmond resident who was narrowly defeated in a bid for a federal Conservative nomination earlier this year, said McCormick's allegations of parachuting are a desperate distraction from the issues, adding that he grew up in the riding, his father still lives in the family home there and most of his business and social contacts are in the city. Responding to McCormick's assertion that she has spent 90 per cent of her life in the riding, Jampolsky claimed he's spent about 75 per cent of his life in the Langara riding.

Jampolsky, who davens at the Louis Brier Home and Hospital and attends Beth Israel synagogue , didn't comment directly on McCormick's relationship to the Jewish community, but said voters want politicians who know where they stand and are not going to "put their fingers in the air" to determine their positions. Jampolsky's own conversion – from federal Conservative to provincial Liberal – does not entail fundamental value-shifts, he said.

"In provincial politics – only for about the last 60 years – we've had a coalition of the centre-right," said Jampolsky. Though it is currently called the Liberal party, Jampolsky said, "that was the party that was chosen as the vehicle of the day."

The issues that Jampolsky is pressing include health care and social welfare. He believes "universal" health care can only be sustained if people are permitted to purchase services outside the system. "Everybody knows someone who has gone to the States [for medical treatment]," he said.

Jampolsky added that he supports welfare as exemplary of how a society cares for those who cannot care for themselves, but wants to eliminate abuses that waste funds. He opposes the harm reduction strategy to drug use that is being employed in Vancouver.

"If we put as much effort into treatment centres as we put into harm reduction centres, we'd be better off," said Jampolsky.

Most of the issues that are of specific interest to the Jewish community, Jampolsky said, tend to be on the federal scene. Foreign policy toward Israel and dysfunction at the United Nations are matters that concern the community, he said. Though these are not issues that dirfectly impact the provincial scene, he said, it is important to have allies at all levels of government.

Other issues that Jampolsky sees as significant include the crime rate in the city and street-racing.

In another twist, Jampolsky's father-in-law, Frank Bernstein, is the campaign manager for McCormick. Jampolsky said his father-in-law asked him last year if he was going to run and, if not, he'd join the McCormick campaign. Jampolsky said he wasn't ready to commit then and when he did enter the race, he said it would have been unfair to ask Bernstein to switch sides.

Anderson lauds all four people who are seeking to replace him. "They're all good candidates," said Anderson, who is retiring because he is now 75 and believes that it is time to call it quits.

Anderson has some deep roots in the Jewish community, going back to his career as a clergyman, when he was involved with the ecumenical group Multifaith Action, then as MLA for Vancouver-Langara. "It's been a real privilege for me to be involved with the Jewish community," he said.

The nomination date has not yet been set, though candidates expect it to take place early in the new year. Under the Liberal government's promise of set election dates, the provincial election is scheduled for May.

Pat Johnson is a Vancouver journalist and commentator.

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