VANCOUVER - Political signs dot the lawns of Vancouver Quadra and unless the Conservative government falls in the next few weeks, residents of the affluent riding will vote in one of four federal byelections scheduled for March 17.
Considered the sixth wealthiest riding in Canada, the west-side Vancouver riding includes posh ocean-view homes and the leafy University of British Columbia.
The byelection was triggered by the resignation of Stephen Owen, a junior minister in former Liberal governments and best know locally as B.C. ombudsman.
Quadra could well serve as a bellwether for what would happen in a national vote: Nothing is expected to change.
The Liberal candidate, Joyce Murray, admits voters question her about Liberal Leader Stephane Dion's style. It's an issue she tries not to dwell upon.
"People ask about Mr. Dion and I say that every Opposition leader has their ups and downs,'' she said.
Conservative candidate Deborah Meredith isn't in Ottawa yet but she's already refusing requests for interviews.
Her campaign manager, Dan Tidball, said Meredith wanted to "focus'' on the local media "and you're the national media.''
He said her decision to not be interviewed was arrived at after a discussion among "people above me.''
Rebecca Coad, a fourth-year political science student at UBC, carries the NDP banner.
The NDP candidate in the 2004 and 2006 general elections finished about 7,000 votes behind the Conservative runner-up in 2006; and about 6,000 behind the same Tory in 2004.
"We are working very hard and taking this seriously,'' said Coad, whose campaign lawn signs are abundant.
"I'm hearing from door-knocking that people are not happy with the Stephen Harper and Stephane Dion governments,'' says Coad.
The Quadra riding is considered solid Grit territory and Murray is the heavy favourite to win.
"The margin for the Liberals will probably be a little lower than it was in the general election,'' said Phil Resnick, political science professor at the University of British Columbia and Quadra resident. "I don't think beyond that we're talking any big change.''
Even if persistently Liberal voters in Quadra are uneasy with Dion, said Allan Tupper, Resnick's colleague at UBC, they aren't going to switch to another party.
Moreover, the Liberals are now able to look at the Conservative government's record, he said.
In the last campaign "it was all about the `horrors' the Liberals had brought but now it's the shift and the Conservatives can't campaign on the flaws of previous Liberal governments,'' said Tupper.
"They've governed for two years and certainly Mr. Harper's leadership style could be challenged equally to Mr. Dion's so I don't think that will be a decisive force.''
Owen vacated the riding after trouncing the Conservative candidate by 14,537 votes in 2004 and 11,811 in 2006.
Resnick doesn't foresee the Liberals losing this time either, but he points out that the riding hasn't always been a Liberal stronghold.
Bill Clark won it twice during Brian Mulroney's regime and Howard Green held it -- and was the country's foreign minister -- during the Diefenbaker years.
But "unless there's a very strong wave for the Conservatives, this is not a riding likely to tip to the Conservatives. This is a riding the Liberals held on to even when they were doing poorly in B.C. in 1997 and 2000,'' Resnick said.
"The bottom line is that this remains a Liberal riding.''
Murray, a former minister in B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell's government, should win the seat but even she thinks it's the party that makes the difference.
"I think the key thing for Vancouver Quadra is this will either be won by Mr. Harper's candidate or by myself on behalf of the Liberals,'' she said.
Murray said she began knocking on doors in June and the issues she hears are the same that are discussed nationally, Dion's style and the Canadian role in Afghanistan.
"Some want the troops to stay but I would say by far the prevalent voice I hear in Quadra is they don't want that never-ending mission and are pleased with the idea of a firm end to the combat role there,'' Murray said.
Tupper, who also lives in the riding, said the previous two elections "provide reasonable measure of what's going on.''
The byelection will the third trip to the polls in four years for Quadra voters and the last two showed a "noteworthy consistency of the vote.''
In the last two elections, the NDP got 15 per cent and 16 per cent of the vote; the Tories, 29 per cent and 26 per cent; the Liberals, 49 per cent and 52 per cent.
"The parties have gone up and down but basically the Liberals receive about half the votes cast; the Conservatives 25 to 30 per cent and the NDP, mid teens, solidly across the last two elections,'' said Tupper.
Former prime minister Paul Martin was a lacklustre leader and yet the riding went solidly Liberal in 2006.
"The Martin campaign was not a distinguished one in any way and the second Martin campaign was equally undistinguished for its focus,'' he says. "Yet in those circumstances the Liberals prevailed quite handily.''
Byelections are also scheduled for March 17 in the Saskatchewan riding of Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River; and the Ontario ridings of Willowdale and Toronto Centre.
Should a general election be called before then, the byelections would be cancelled and rolled into the date set for the general election.
