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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