I have seen Hedy Fry make the news in the past few days complaining about something. I have spent a lot of time in her riding as it is adjacent to my own, and I have tracked her progress on local television and in instances such as the Olympic logo "outrage" in the national media. Of all the interviews I have watched or listen to of Hedy, I don't think I have ever agreed with her. Infact I find most of her outlandish statements to be borderline ridiculous. So this week when I saw her complaining about the logo on TV, my initial reaction "ïf Hedy doesn't like it, it has to be good." She is among the group of public voices whom I treat like a "canary in the coal mine". So long as the canary is singing (or complaining) that indicates to me that the policy initiative that elicited the complaints is a good idea and we should continue forward progress in that direction. If Hedy shuts up and doesn't complain, I would be concerned and would evacuate the workers from the coal mine.
I would like to point out that Hedy received 5575 fewer votes in 2008 from 2006. That means one in five Hedy voters did not vote for her in 2008. A 20% drop in support is quite a lot. If the trend continues and she loses 10%-15% next time around, the Tories win Vancouver Center. She might be safe, but the erosion of support the Liberals have lost in the Vancouver Asian community will make defending her seat difficult. One needs only do the math in Richmond to measure the size of the shift towards the Tories in the Asian community in BC. Iggy might jab the PM for boycotting China at the Olympics as ruining our standing in the world, but the Vancouver Asian community rewarded Stephen Harper. Evidently many of the Chinese who decided to leave China don't have a lot of nice things to say about the government who quashed the protests at Tiananmen Square.
I think her problem was that when she was looking at the Logo she had smoke in her eyes from all the crosses burning in her riding as she was speaking. Iceman, I fully agree with your assesment of her re. the comments she makes. "ïf Hedy doesn't like it, it has to be good." To me this utterly ridiculous comment re. the logo impacts on the whole caucus, from the top down. If I was running the show, I would take her aside and tell her to make no comments unless she talks to me first, of course her running off at the mouth is good for PMSH, the crooner....argee
ReplyDeleteI agree with your post, but some observations:
ReplyDelete- Vancouver Centre is only 9% Chinese, and probably around 15% Asian, so the Asian community here isn't as important as ridings like Richmond or Vancouver South.
- Hedy won by less than 10% last election, so that means the Tory candidate Rachel Greenfeld just needs to swing ~5% to win (assuming support from the last election is stable).
- Chinese-Canadians in general do care about the relationship with China. Many of them swung over to the Conservatives because Dion was a poor leader. Stephen Harper by contrast was viewed as competent. However, if the Conservatives want sustainable support in this community, part of the key will be to warm relations with China. This doesn't mean selling out Canadian values, but it does mean working cooperatively with other countries such as China.
The Tories need roughly 14% of the people who voted for Hedy Fry to convert. My original statement was not in reference to points in the popular vote, but rather percentage of a party's voters. There is a difference. Don't be confused by semantics.
ReplyDeleteand you don't get to divide it in two. My numbers are subtracted from one and added to another. The math is accurate. You subtract 14% from the Liberal vote total and add it to the Tory vote total. I wrote 10-15 because 15 was too much and ten was not enough to win and I was too lazy to check 11, 12, 13, or 14.
ReplyDeleteRachel Greenfeld is going to win Vancouver Centre? This is the funniest thing ever written on the internet.
ReplyDelete