Will The NDP Change Track And Attack BC Liberals On HST, Basi-Virk $6 Million Payout And Other Scandals!
While fresh polls released late this week show that the NDP’s nearly 15 point lead has been halved, they are still heavily favoured to win. But will it force party leader Adrian Dix and party strategists to bring out the dirt on the BC Liberals who have been left to continue telling voters half truths while hammering the NDP about their dubious record from the 1990s when they were in power.
By R. Paul Dhillon With News Files
VANCOUVER – Is it time for NDP leader Adrian Dix to get nasty as polls show his party is losing support even though it is still a whopping seven percentage points ahead of the BC Liberals and still favoured to win the May 14 election?
An Angus Reid Public Opinion poll conducted in partnership with CTV News and the Globe and Mail released Thursday found that 41 per cent of people surveyed would vote for the New Democrats if the election were held tomorrow, while BC Liberals would garner 34 per cent of the vote, reported CTV news..
The poll shows a slide of four points for the NDP since late April, while Liberals gained three points.
The BC Greens hold 12 per cent support, a gain of two points, and the BC Conservatives have 10 per cent, dropping a point since the last survey.
Three per cent of people surveyed said they’d vote for other parties or an independent candidate in their riding.
The question for NDP now is will it force party leader Adrian Dix and party strategists to bring out the dirt on the BC Liberals who have been left to continue telling voters half truths while hammering the NDP about their dubious record from the 1990s when they were in power.
The NDP has no shortage of dirt on the BC Liberals everything from wasting millions on capital projects like BC Convention Centre, BC Place roof, bringing in the hated HST, the scandalous Basi-Virk $6 Million Payout and a whole host of other scandals and general incompetence by the long in power BC Liberals as well as the short reign of Christy Clark.
One of the key backroom strategist is party president Moe Sihota but it is really Dix who is the driving force behind the generally clean campaign run by the NDP. With now just about 10 days left in the campaign, the NDP and particularly Dix may not want to bring in the dirt as while it may drive home a point of BC Liberal incompetence and failure but could drive the mainstream media to hammer them on shifting gears.
Also the latest polls shows Dix’s party still holds a steady lead above Clark’s Liberals when looking at Metro Vancouver – 45 per cent versus 35 per cent. In the Southern Interior the Liberals are leading the New Democrats 42 to 29 per cent.
Pollster Eric Grenier of ThreeHundredEight.com gives the Liberals a less than five percent chance of winning the popular vote on May 14th.
Dix also shrugged off the latest political poll, saying the election is closer than what the polls have indicated.
“I expected this to be a close election. Very pleased that we are still doing well. You know, it is going to be a campaign right to the end. I have been saying this for months and months and months and months, that it is going to be a close election and it is, but I am very pleased with our campaign” Dix told CKNW radio.
“To some extent, the latest results aren’t surprising. A majority of those who were uncommitted at the start of the campaign were identified as having once supported the Liberals. Once the campaign got underway, it highlighted the contrast between the two main parties, and many of those who had been inclined to vote Liberal in the past decided to return home,” wrote the Globe and Mail’s Gary Mason on
Friday.
