WATCH: The NDP has selected their nominee in Vancouver East – and it’s a familiar face to many residents of the riding. Keith Baldrey reports.
The NDP have elected Jenny Kwan as their candidate in Vancouver East for the upcoming federal election.
Kwan, the NDP MLA for Vancouver-Mount Pleasant since 1996, defeated her fellow MLA Mable Elmore for the nomination, along with Scott McLean and Gwen Giesbrecht.
“I’m obviously very thrilled,” Kwan said in a phone interview shortly after the results were announced.
“Moving forward, the most important job is actually ahead of us and that is working to keep Van East orange and working to elect Thomas Mulcair as the next prime minister of Canada.”
Kwan will look to replace outgoing NDP MP Libby Davies, who has held the riding since 1997. Vancouver East has elected NDP or CCF candidates in all but two elections since it was created in 1933, and Davies defeated her nearest challenger, Conservative nominee Irene Yacto, by over 19,000 votes in 2011.
The total number of votes cast was 1,416, but NDP organizers did not release Kwan’s margin of victory.
Kwan had said she would step down as Vancouver-Mount Pleasant MLA if she was chosen as the nominee, which likely means a byelection in the provincial riding within the next year.
She said she’ll talk to provincial NDP leader John Horgan soon to discuss a “transition period” allowing her to exit the B.C. legislature and focus on the federal election, which is scheduled for October 19.
The Conservatives, Liberals and Green Party haven’t selected a candidate in the riding yet.
– With files from The Canadian Press
Comments