It’s been a campaign crunch for candidates hoping to win the Edmonton Strathcona riding.
“We’ve hit more than 40,000 doors in this campaign,” Conservative candidate Sam Lilly said.
“The most important thing is just going to be to continue to talk to as many voters as we can, to continue to talk about our platform, continue to talk about the excellent things I think the NDP are putting forward,” NDP candidate Heather McPherson said.
With Linda Duncan’s departure from politics after 11 years as MP, this riding is up for grabs.
“Linda Duncan was our member of Parliament and has been a spectacular member of Parliament for this area. It’s an NDP stronghold and I think it will stay that way,” McPherson said.
“The reason it’s a toss-up, it’s probably the only riding in Alberta and certainly the only riding in Edmonton where all three parties are competitive,” political analyst John Brennan explained.
The race got more competitive last week when Green Party candidate Michael Kalmanovitch dropped out, asking his supporters to vote for McPherson.
It was a move the Liberal and Conservative candidates largely dismissed.
“I never like to read the tea leaves or try to guess what’s going to happen,” Lilly said. “We’re going to put our heads down and do the work.”
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“I tend not to think so much about the competition,” Liberal candidate Eleanor Olszewski said. “I’m really focused on doing the best job I can for my own party, the Liberal Party.”
Brennan believes the move does benefit McPherson but perhaps not significantly.
“It probably would have helped more if he had pulled out sooner because his name is still on the ballot and of course people voting in advanced polls who are Green Party supporters have already voted for him.”
Brennan said it will take more than a few extra Green Party votes to win.
“What it’s really going to come down to on election day is who’s got the real core of volunteers that can go out there that can pull the vote and get their supporters to the polls. I suspect it will be a real titanic struggle between the Conservative Party campaign and the NDP campaign.”
Also running in the Edmonton Strathcona riding is Ian Cameron with the People’s Party of Canada, Dougal MacDonald with the Marxist-Leninist Party and Naomi Rankin with the Communist Party.
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