Saturday September 28, 2019 ~ ESQUIMALT
by Mary P Brooke ~ West Shore Voice News
The launch of a ‘new wave of contact’ with supporters, campaigners and community took place on Saturday September 28 at Randall Garrison’s campaign office at noon. Garrison is the incumbent NDP candidate for Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke.
This marks the Garrison team’s move into “the more active portion of the campaign,” say organizers.
This follows Garrison’s proud introduction of NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh at the leader’s town hall last night at the Victoria Conference Centre.
It was Garrison who spotted Singh in the proverbial crowd a few years ago, encouraging the former Ontario member of parliament to join the federal NDP. Singh became the NDP’s federal leader just two years ago in October 2017 and then relocated to BC in August 2018 to run in Burnaby South. He won as the MP for Burnaby South in February 2019, and since has spent time in Ottawa to provide a higher NDP profile in the national news cycle.
At the first official office opening on September 14, former local long-time MLA Maurine Karagianis and current NDP MLA Mitzi Dean had introduced Garrison to the community and team that they hope will lead the two-term MP into his third term.
The national campaign includes issues of clean tech, economic/job equality, Pharmacare, better national housing strategies, and interest-free student loans and free post-secondary tuition.
And today Singh also added a bonus of additional federal funding (in addition to what is already contributed by the federal government) to help reduce the cost of travel for the public when travelling on vessels in the BC Ferries fleet. Singh made that announcement was travelling back to the mainland after his participation in the climate action strike yesterday at the BC Legislative grounds and holding his town hall Friday evening.
“Jagmeet loves campaigning, and he’s a really good campaigner,” said Garrison a few weeks ago. “We’re going to do very well.”
Garrison had been working on getting self-harm out of the military code of conduct for discipline. He also wants to work on getting better access to HIV testing and treatment. Apparently experts say that HIV can be eliminated by 2030 but in Canada rates are going up not down. His third priority is the fate of the Southern Resident Killer Whales … more fish in the water, taking the industrial pollutants and industrial traffic out of their habitat. It’s not telling fishermen to stop taking fish out of the water. He commended the fishermen who work on salmon restoration in Sooke.
Randall in a third term as a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons has those personal political priorities with which he would like to see accomplished: “I want to go back, I want to get some more things done,” he told the crowd.
Garrison’s campaign office for this 40-day federal campaign is at 829-C Admirals Road in Esquimalt, near the dock yards.
The large Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke riding with a population of about 120,000 includes Esquimalt, Colwood, the north-Quadra/Tillicum area of Saanich, Metchosin, Sooke and Juan de Fuca up to Jordan River.
The riding name was renewed ahead of the 2015 to include Sooke in the name, due to the persistence of Garrison in that effort.
The next two All Candidates Forum for Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke candidates will be held on Sunday September 29 in Otter Point (2 pm, at the JdF Services Building, 3-7450 Butler Road; hosted by residents who live west of Sooke) and on Friday October 11 (7 pm, at EMCS high school, 6218 Sooke Road; hosted by the Sooke Region Chamber of Commerce).