Vote for Iggy

The Michael Ignatieff leadership campaign - his second one - appears to be well underway.

While travelling B.C. to help MPs Don Bell and Sukh Dhaliwal avoid being washed away in the ebb tide of the Liberal Party, Ignatieff found time to help Gerry Lenoski in his futile quest for Parliament.

You don't know Jack

Jack Layton is scheduled to be in Burnaby tomorrow at BCIT. It looks like the parties see Burnaby-Douglas as a hotly contested battleground that is worth the fight.

Dion in 60 seconds

As the federal election approaches the half way mark, Liberal Stephane Dion makes his second Burnaby tour stop of the campaign tomorrow. The early morning visit to the Burnaby Board of Trade is expected to be a follow up announcement to today's Liberal platform release.

The stop in Burnaby-New Westminster is peculiar on a number of counts. First, Dion has been focusing much of his attention on protecting Liberal seats. In B.C., many of those seats appear to be the centre of races far more competitive than Burnaby. Furhtermore, Lenoski is no Dion loyalist. Not only was Lenoski a supporter of Michael Ignatieff's leadership bid but he was the recipient of compensation for his paid work as Ignatieff's BC communications chair. Lenoski stepped aside early in the candidate selection process only to be brought back in when there was no one else to be found. Finally, with no new news expected in the event that will highlight the B.C.-specific portions of the platform, the Liberals pushed a negative story about Conservative Sam Rakhra into the news so that the travelling press would have a softball question to throw at the Liberal boss.

A lesson to be learned

With the NDP having some issues with candidate vetting, now is a good time to remind TEAM Burnaby of a little thing called Google.

And by the way, AndrewChisholm.ca is still available.

Targets

Jack Layton has spent the early days of this election chasing the votes he needs to become Prime Minister. Although that plan is more marketing campaign than likely reality, a side effect of his strategy is not spending much time in NDP held ridings, like the Burnabys, and more time in enemy territory, like Vancouver Centre tonight.

Where Layton may not be spending time, Stephane Dion is. Dion has been scheduled as a distinguished speaker at the Burnaby Board of Trade on Tuesday. Gerry Lenoski will likely appreciate the help as he tries to bump the Liberals up past Peter Julian.

No word yet whether Tory leader Stephen Harper or Elizabeth May of the Greens will be making stops in this battleground suburb.

Finally someone to vote for (or against)

Conservative Ronald Leung in Burnaby-Douglas and Liberal Gerry Lenoski in Burnaby-New Westminster are the first names to get through the application paperwork. Candidates only have a few more days to get their names on the ballots.

Hurry up people! Voting just encourages them but acclaimations are worse.

Harper out, Perry in

Doug Perry is the Green candidate in Burnaby-Douglas.

Perry ran in Vancouver South in the last two elections, finishing fourth. His occupation was listed as holistic practitioner/instructor and self-employed in those elections.

Perry promised in 2006 to focus on a variety of toxic chemical pollution related issues. Given he seemed to be very focused on this one environmental issue he will not likely win too many votes away from the other candidates. This time he seems to be focusing on hybrid vehicles. He will likely finish with the 1600-odd votes the Greens usually pick up in Douglas unless he actually runs an active campaign.

Global debate

The Burnaby-Douglas candidates are on Global TV this morning for their segment in the continuing series on the morning news.

How small is the local audience for such a debate?

Vote 3 Leung

Leungs are on the rise in Burnaby's electoral contests.

First out of the gate was Irene Leung, the TEAM Burnaby school board candidate. Then the federal election saw the entry of the unrelated Chinese-language media pundit Ronald Leung as the Conservative in Burnaby-Douglas. Finally former TEAM president Raymond Leung, father to Irene, has thrown his hat in the ring for TEAM council.

Expect to see plenty of Leungs running around Burnaby looking for votes over the next couple of months.

Change of plans

Stephane Dion, who had a bad first week of the campaign, never made it up to SFU today. Instead he visited a housing co-op in north Burnaby.

After that he was off to Vancouver Island and then back to the Lower Mainland for a Surrey rally with MPs and candidates.

Now you see him... now you don't

Stephen Harper of the Greens is mentioned in the headline of the riding profile story in today's Now. However, our friends over at Punditsguide.ca point out he is no longer listed as the Burnaby-Douglas candidate.

Burnaby-Douglas looks a lot less entertaining, but the race will remain a two-way fight between incumbent New Democrat Bill Siksay and Conservative challenger Ronald Leung.

Professor Stéphane

The Stéphane Dion Liberals are about to spread their wings and start campaigning outside the Ottawa-Toronto-Montreal triangle. On Friday, Dion is expected to head to Burnaby to lecture at SFU. No word yet on the topic but the The Green Shift will likely be the subject of most media questions given B.C. is the only province that seems to have the slightest clue as to what a carbon tax might entail.

Although Bill Cunningham is already quick out of the gate with his sign waving to passing motorists he may not benefit as much from a visit from this lecturing Liberal as he used to from his boat owing friend a few years back.

There they go

Bill Cunningham, Ronald Leung, and Stephen Harper (no, not that one) are out and running to get Bill Siksay's job.

Sam Rakhra and Carrie-Ann McLaren will soon be joined by Gerry Lenoski in their chase for Peter Julian's job. The Liberals acclaim Lenoski tomorrow night.

There is no word yet about any other candidates in either Burnaby constituency.

General Lee

TEAM Burnaby is in the news again with more candidates.

One of their surprise council candidates may be Lee Rankin, who has regularly been rumoured as TEAM's mayoral hopeful. Without Rankin or independent councillor Garth Evans seeking the mayoralty, Derek Corrigan's re-election would be even more likely.

Peter got his wish

CTV is reporting that David Emerson will not seek a third term in Parliament.

Emerson's main Burnaby connection was through Peter Julian who was the NDP critic of many of his original Conservative portfolios of international trade, Gateway and the Olympics. Julian was also not afraid to criticize the floor crossing minister.