Friday April 18, 2025 | LANGFORD, BC [Posted at 10:50 pm | Updated 11:05 pm]
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
Liberal candidate Blair Herbert (Cowichan-Malahat-Langford) held a meet-and-greet with voters at Poncho’s Cafe in in central Langford this afternoon on this first day of the Easter Long Weekend.
He and his team spent two hours chatting with people who had dropped by for an afternoon coffee.
People had questions for Herbert about affordability, the cost of housing and military supports. People are concerned about the Trump factor and feel that Liberal Leader Mark Carney will be best to take on the challenge of negotiating for Canada’s economic security.
“We’re running right toward a brick wall,” said Herbert regarding the affordability and housing attainability challenges of people in this community. He likes the Liberal plan to build more homes that are affordable including” rentals that are available to people at 30% of their income”.
He heard concerns today about upholding the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, pointing out that the Conservative leader wants to override the Supreme Court and the Charter of Rights in order to put through a draconian crime bill. “It’s all smoke and mirrors, really,” says Herbert about Pierre Poilievre in a quick interview with Island Social Trends. “He’s talking about stuff that would never happen,” said Herbert, referring to Poilievre’s proposed idea that consecutive sentences should be applied to killers of multiple people.
It’s more about “rah rah rah, we’re going to be hard on these people’ but they’re overriding everybody’s rights. Our criminal system is pretty good but it’s not perfect. Every once in a while someone will be thrown into jail for life and you ‘lock and the key and they’re only coming out of there in a box’. But sometimes we miss the mark… maybe the evidence wasn’t as good as what it needed to be.”
“The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is there for everybody,” says Herbert.
He chatted with an RCMP employee today at the cafe who had concerns about the opioid crisis and the dysfunction in the health care system which ties up policing resources (e.g. when officers must sit with a person brought in for mental health reasons, until the hospital accepts them as a patient). So they’re taken out of commission for six hours and can’t do their other policing.
Carney won’t take money out of the health-care system, said Blair Herbert regarding the NDP charge that a re-elected Liberal government would cut health-care funding.
Herbert says the federal government has “to come in with some money” to help provinces deliver better health care in particular to do with getting people treatment for getting off of substance use. He hopes that with a Liberal government there would be more funding for that; he says he would lobby for that if elected as the next MP for Cowichan-Malahat-Langford as well as reintroducing support for a national brain injury bill (something that incumbent NDP candidate Alistair MacGregor introduced in the House of Commons last year).
Conservatives not talking to media:
“It sends a huge message to the population that we’re not interested in listening to you and we’re not going to be interested in listening to you if you get to Ottawa,” says Blair Herbert about how Conservative candidates have been told by the party leadership that they’re not to speak to the media.
At the doorstep:
“Thank God you’re here,” is what people are saying to Blair Herbert when he’s out doorknocking. At the doors of nine houses in a row people told him they were voting Liberal.
“Every door that we go to is overwhelmingly Liberal,” said the riding’s Liberal candidate today.
“If they want Mark Carney as the prime minister they need to vote for their Liberal candidate,” says Herbert, rejecting the NDP argument that the Liberals will still form government if people vote NDP.
“If you want to vote strategically you should be voting for the Liberal Party, to make sure the Conservatives don’t in,” said Herbert.
Third run:
This is Herbert’s third run at becoming the member of parliament for the large riding that spans Langford, the Juan de Fuca areas up to Port Renfrew, and the east side of south Vancouver Island including Cobble Hill, Mill Bay, Cowichan Valley and Duncan.
He was also the Liberal candidate in Cowichan-Malahat-Langford in 2019 and 2021.
There are about 103,000 voters in the riding.
===== RELATED:
- Carney announces Liberal sustainability platform including 10 new national parks & 15 urban parks (April 7, 2025)
- Liberal Leader Mark Carney rallies the party faithful in Victoria (April 6, 2025)
- Cowichan-Malahat-Langford candidate campaign signage around town (April 5, 2025)
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