B.C. Votes 2017: Burnaby-Lougheed riding profile
Former TV anchor Steve Darling seeks election in the same riding he worked in for nearly two decades
In advance of the 2017 B.C. election, we'll be profiling all 87 electoral districts in the province. Here is Burnaby-Lougheed, one of four ridings in Burnaby — and one where the two main candidates are well known to voters, albeit for different reasons.
Summary: A suburban riding in northeastern Burnaby, it includes a number of neighbourhoods in the city, including university housing areas close to SFU, upper-class homes north of Burnaby Lake and a mix of working-class neighbourhoods and new developments around Lougheed Town Centre and the George Derby Conservation area.
Politics: Burnaby has typically been an NDP stronghold but after the northeast quarter of the riding got its own riding prior to the 2001 election (then known as Burquitlam), it went to the Liberals three times in a row, before NDP candidate Jane Shin defeated former cabinet minister Harry Bloy by just over 700 votes.
Candidates: Shin is not running again for the NDP. The party's nominee this time around is Katrina Chen, a Burnaby school trustee and former constituency assistant for MP Peter Julian and MLA Raj Chouhan.
The B.C. Liberal candidate is Steve Darling, the longtime former anchor of Global B.C.'s morning news program. He was let go from Global in October 2016 and was named as the party's nominee a month later.
The Green Party candidate is Joe Keithley, the longtime lead guitarist of the punk band D.O.A., who has ran for the provincial and federal party in multiple elections.
5. Where does the NDP do well? It does well in the far south of the riding near the New Westminster border, around 10th Avenue and Fourth Street, along with the homes beside Gaglardi Way as one makes their way to or from Simon Fraser University.
What about the Liberals? The neighbourhood between Burnaby Lake and Lougheed Highway is home to many of the city's richest homes, and Liberal candidates regularly get upwards of 65 per cent of the vote in polling stations there.