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Federal election: Meet the new photo-finish candidates whose fate came down to mail-in ballots

Election night was a roller-coaster ride of emotions for many new MPs and maybe-MPs, their path to Ottawa paved (or blocked) by mail-in ballots

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B.C. has some new, rookie political stars who either came from behind to unseat an incumbent on the night of the federal election or performed so well they were locked in a virtual dead-heat race in their riding, with the final outcome to be decided by mail-in ballots.

Those ballots were still being counted in some ridings on Friday.

Across the country, little changed on the political map in the 2021 election. Here in B.C., where we have 42 federal seats, there are five ridings where newcomers who have never been an MP before either won or were expected to win a seat.

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In Port Moody-Coquitlam, the NDP’s Bonita Zarrillo came out on top, unseating Conservative incumbent Nelly Shin.

There will be a new face, as well, representing Vancouver-Granville, as independent incumbent Jody Wilson-Raybould did not run again.

It was announced late Thursday that Liberal Taleeb Noormohamed had nudged out the NDP’s Anjali Appadurai by just 436 votes.

It appears certain that in Steveston-Richmond East, first-time candidate Liberal Parm Bains will unseat Conservative incumbent Kenny Chiu.

Late Friday afternoon, a completed count of mail-in ballots confirmed that newbie Liberal Wilson Miao has become the new MP for Richmond Centre, unthroning veteran Conservative Alice Wong, who held this seat for 13 years.

Nanaimo-Ladysmith will also have a freshman MP because Green incumbent Paul Manly finished third. Locked in a near-tie are the NDP’s Lisa Marie Barron who, as of Thursday evening, had a small lead over Conservative Tamara Kronis.

Each of these new faces endured a roller-coaster evening on Monday as they watched the results flow in. And for some of them, this past week has also been a nail-biter. Here are some of their stories:

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Port Moody-Coquitlam

Bonita Zarrillo takes a selfie with a voter while campaigning in Coquitlam on Sept. 9.
Bonita Zarrillo takes a selfie with a voter while campaigning in Coquitlam on Sept. 9. Photo by Arlen Redekop /PNG

In the 2019 federal election, Bonita Zarrillo lost the Port Moody-Coquitlam riding by just 153 votes to Nelly Shin. The two candidates battled each other again in 2021, but this time Zarrillo beat Shin by 2,762 votes once the mail-in ballots were counted. Even if the race wasn’t as down-to-the-wire this time, it was still tense to watch the results roll in on election night, said Zarrillo.

“There’s just so much emotion that comes with people putting their trust into you,” said Zarrillo, a mother of three young-adult children.

So what flipped voter support her way in 2021, after she lost the squeaker in 2019? Zarrillo’s theory is that constituents wanted to share their difficult stories about the pandemic and were attracted to the NDP’s efforts in the last parliament to push the federal Liberals for improved benefits for families and businesses.

“There’s been a lot of loss over this pandemic. People have lost their jobs, their incomes, their spouses, their pets, their homes,” she said. “And since people haven’t really been able to get out, it was important to be able to hear it on their doorsteps.”

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Zarrillo is serving her third term as a Coquitlam city councillor, but this will be her first foray to the House of Commons. She said she got into municipal politics to try to improve issues for working mothers, and the same passion compelled her to run federally.

“I’ve been on the train with them in the morning. I’ve been racing home with them to try to get to daycare before it closes at six o’clock,” said Zarrillo, who worked as a business analyst in the grocery industry.

“I’ve lived in almost every province in Canada and had to move with work. I’ve had to set up new homes, new doctors, new dentists, new schools for the kids. I want them to know that I’ve been in the same situations that they’ve been as a working parent. And I know what they’re up against in this very, very, very expensive province.”

She has been in Coquitlam for 11 years, after growing up in Saskatchewan and living in other parts of Canada and the U.S. for work.

Zarrillo stopped her business analyst job in 2015 after being diagnosed with breast cancer, so she could focus on her treatments and getting healthy.

She was 48 when diagnosed, and the experience has made her reflect on how government systems can better serve women in the same situation.

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“I’m a gender equity champion, and it certainly has made me understand how difficult it can be for women with all the things that they go through in their life.”

Affordable housing and climate change are also her priorities to pursue once she’s in Ottawa, she said.


Steveston-Richmond East

Parm Bains with his wife and children.
Parm Bains with his wife and children.

Parm Bains became the Liberal candidate for Steveston-Richmond East, a riding that elected Conservative Kenny Chiu in 2019 by a comfortable margin, on July 17. A short time later, the writ was issued and then the five-week campaign was like a whirlwind, culminating with a bare-knuckle election night.

“It was actually pretty emotional, an emotional ride that lasted the whole month,” said Bains, the married father of two school-age kids.

“Everything happened really quickly. There’s a lot of work and a lot of emotions, going through everything and going through it with my family.”

Bains was watching with his wife and children, along with other supporters, as the votes were tabulated on Monday night. When it looked like he might win the riding, he had to wait for his campaign team to tell him what to do next.

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“I’ve never been in that position before,” he said with a laugh.

Although the mail-in counting continued Friday, by mid-day Bains was 3,500 votes ahead of Chiu.

Bains, 46, has been a business instructor at Kwantlen Polytechnic University since 2017, and before that worked for 14 years as both a public relations and media relations officer with the provincial government.

He coached his 10-year-old son’s soccer team and frequently drove his 13-year-old daughter to her activities, so now his children must adjust to the idea of a sudden, new job in Ottawa for their father.

“I was fortunate enough to, in my previous roles, have a lot of time at home, working from home and being very active in their lives. They’re ready for (the change),” he said of his children.

Bains grew up in his riding, and still lives there. On the doorsteps, he said housing affordability and climate change were important issues for voters.

But he said the top issue was how families and businesses were supported during the pandemic. Finishing the fight against COVID, including the vaccine rollout, is his top priority, he said.

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“If we want our schools open, our businesses open, and everyone to not only survive, but we want people to thrive, we need that progress to continue. So that’s the No. 1 focus for us when we go to Ottawa.”


Vancouver-Granville

Anjali Appadurai was the NDP candidate for Vancouver-Granville.
Anjali Appadurai was the NDP candidate for Vancouver-Granville. Photo by Arlen Redekop /PNG

Anjali Appadurai, 31, has made a name for herself in environmental circles, most recently as the climate justice lead for the Sierra Club of B.C., but she wasn’t very well known in Vancouver-Granville, where the previous NDP candidate had finished a distant fourth in the 2019 federal election.

“I came in as a virtual unknown, as a complete unknown, actually. No one in this riding had heard my name before. We started off without a campaign manager,” she recalled. “We came in with no resources whatsoever.”

That started to change mid-campaign, when she noticed voters were increasingly interested in speaking with her about NDP policies.

“The (voter-intention) curve started slow, and then the curve just went up to almost vertical as energy started converging around the campaign, donations started pouring in, volunteers started pouring in.”

Around the same time, it was revealed that her main opponent, Liberal Taleeb Noormohamed, had flipped more than 40 houses. The optics weren’t good in a riding where many voters peg housing affordability as a key issue.

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Taleeb Noormohamed speaks on election night.
Taleeb Noormohamed speaks on election night. Photo by Jason Payne /PNG

Postmedia made several requests to interview Noormohamed about the close race in the riding, and his priorities as MP, but received no response from him or his campaign officials.

Thursday night’s final count revealed the small number of votes that separated Noormohamed and Appadurai — 436 — was a very small percentage of the roughly 17,000 votes each garnered.

Early Friday morning, Noormohamed Tweeted: “It is the honour of a lifetime to have the opportunity to represent the residents of Vancouver Granville as your Member of Parliament. I will strive to earn the trust of each and every one of you, and can’t wait to work my hardest for this community.

“To every single volunteer who gave their time and effort on this campaign — thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your support has meant everything to me, and I wouldn’t be here without you.”

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This is the first time Appadurai has run for politics, and she told Postmedia earlier this week — before she learned she had lost the close race — that she was prepared for whatever the outcome might be.

“My pride in what our team accomplished far outweighs any attachment to any outcome. I feel very excited and at peace with all outcomes. And there’s so much important work to be done in whichever avenue I will take postelection,” she said.

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Appadurai emigrated from India to Canada at age six and grew up in Coquitlam. Through scholarships, she attended a liberal arts high school and university in the United States, where she got involved with work linked to the United Nations’ climate convention and launched her career as an environmental advocate.

She decided to run for office because she felt the “stakes were high” with the climate crisis, and said she met many disillusioned voters looking for change.

“People are out of jobs, and people are so destabilized after the pandemic. And there was this dystopic feeling in the air, especially earlier this summer, when we were breathing in all that wildfire smoke and watching towns get burned to the ground.”


Richmond Centre

Wilson Miao was the Liberal candidate for Richmond Centre.
Wilson Miao was the Liberal candidate for Richmond Centre. Photo by Liberal Party of Canada /PNG

In one of the most surprising outcomes of last Monday evening, Liberal Wilson Miao emerged with 700 more votes than longtime Conservative Alice Wong, who has held Richmond Centre since 2008. It was finally confirmed late Friday that Miao had won the riding.

He had spent the last four days wishing for that outcome. “I’m still crossing my fingers but hoping for the best,” the 34-year-old said earlier this week.

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Postmedia tried twice to reach Wong to comment on her hopes for re-election as the mail-in ballots were being counted, but received no response.

Last Monday night, as she watched the early results, Wong told Postmedia reporter Susan Lazaruk that if she is returned to Ottawa, she would focus on restarting the economy in Richmond Centre, improving housing for seniors and creating jobs for women.

This was a first run at political office for Miao, who works in communications and marketing for the Richmond Sentinel newspaper and is also a realtor who consulted for real estate developments and senior living projects. He said affordable housing and seniors care are top priorities for him when he goes to Ottawa, along with climate action and community safety — especially related to the increase in racist hate crimes during the pandemic.

“A lot of people I talked to said they are worried and scared to even come out for a walk just because they don’t know what to expect,” Miao said. “I feel like our Liberal government did the right thing to ban all the assault weapons.”

Miao tried to do his part for the environment by ordering just 50 plastic election signs, putting them only in high-traffic roads. To get his name around the riding, he instead painted his face and name on a van, which he used as a mobile campaign office.

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Wilson Miao (centre) with supporters in front of his campaign van.
Wilson Miao (centre) with supporters in front of his campaign van.

In 2019, Wong took nearly 50 per cent of the vote, trouncing all her competitors. When asked how he convinced some former blue voters to lean red in 2021, Miao said he used his extensive network of friends to help him get his message out and spoke to as many people as possible.

No one can accuse Miao of being a parachute candidate in Richmond. He still lives, with his mother and two sisters, in the family home where he grew up in the riding.

His family emigrated from Hong Kong to Richmond in 1996 when Miao was 10. He can remember, as a young boy, being fascinated as former Liberal MP Raymond Chan ran for office in Richmond.

“That was when I first knew of elections and democracy in Canada.”

The death of his father a few years ago was devastating but also changed Miao’s perspective and inspired him to enter politics.

“I want to give more toward the community and actually improve the place where I call home.”


Nanaimo-Ladysmith

Lisa Marie Barron is the NDP candidate for Nanaimo-Ladysmith
Lisa Marie Barron is the NDP candidate for Nanaimo-Ladysmith Photo by NDP /PNG

The NDP’s Lisa Marie Barron did not expect to find out until late Friday whether she will hold her lead over Conservative Tamara Kronis, which was by 1,000 votes on election night, as her riding had at least 8,000 mail-in ballots to count.

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After the frenzied pace of the campaign, Barron used the last few days to catch up on life — she cooked meals for her kids, did some laundry — and waited as patiently as possible to find out whether she’ll be taking a new job in Ottawa.

“Regardless of the outcome of the election, to see all the support that has poured in, all of the voters who voted for a New Democrat voice in this riding, I’m just feeling very, very grateful,” said Barron, who watched the results at home with her 18-year-old daughter and 14-year-old son, her parents, and siblings.

“Even if we don’t win this election, I’m very optimistic about the future of this riding.”

The Nanaimo-Ladysmith riding was held by the NDP until the Greens’ Paul Manly won it in 2019. The Conservatives also wanted to turn this seat blue, fielding Kronis, a lawyer and the mother of two teenagers.

Kronis, who could emerge victorious depending on how the mail-in-ballot dust settles, did not respond to several requests for an interview.

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Barron, who is a Nanaimo school board trustee, said she ran for federal office because she didn’t see many voices in Parliament with her lived experiences.

“I come from a very much working family. I became a single parent and at the time, I didn’t have an education. I was working full time, in a minimum-wage job, struggling to make ends meet, and made the decision that I wanted a better future for my children. And I went back to school and have worked really hard,” said Barron, who earned a university degree and now works with youth with addictions.

She has lived in the riding since age 15, after her family moved there from Newfoundland, and said, if she wins, she would base her priorities in Ottawa on her constituents’ concerns.

“What I was hearing at the door, and in my conversations, has highlighted the importance of our public services, our healthcare, our affordable housing, our living wage, our small and medium sized businesses, all of these things that help everyday people to get by,” she said.

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Her children have been supportive of her chasing this dream.

“On a hard (campaign) day, when I was struggling, they were the ones who said, ‘Mom, you’ve got this,’ and reminded me of why I’m doing it.”

lculbert@postmedia.com

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