B.C. swept up in red tide as Liberals have best showing in decades

published on October 19, 2015 by Mark Hume, Ian Bailey and Andrea Woo , in The Globe and Mail

The red tide that swept across the country starting in Atlantic Canada swamped the Conservative base in the West and gave Justin Trudeau more seats in British Columbia than the Liberals have had in more than 40 years.

Mr. Trudeau, who played to boisterous crowds in the Vancouver area, dramatically increased the Liberals’ seats in B.C. from two in the previous election and appeared to have topped the party’s record from 1968, when Mr. Trudeau’s father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, led the Liberals to win 16 seats in the province.

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The Liberal Party has also said it would replace the Conservatives’ so-called Respect for Communities Act, which harm-reduction advocates say impedes the operation of supervised-injection sites such as Insite. Mr. Trudeau has in the past expressed support for the sites and advocated for evidence-based drug policy. And the party has promised to support the highly ambitious 90-90-90 HIV/AIDS target spearheaded by B.C.’s Dr. Julio Montaner, which would include widespread HIV testing.

Legalizing and regulating recreational marijuana use, which Mr. Trudeau argued will prevent funds from going to criminal coffers, has also been promised, although the party has not yet disclosed how it would tax recreational pot sales.

The Liberal gains came at the cost of the Conservatives. But as significant as the change for Liberal fortunes is in British Columbia, the red seats are almost entirely centred in and around the Lower Mainland. With the exception of Stephen Fuhr’s win in Kelowna-Lake Country, where he beat Conservative incumbent Ron Cannan, the rest of British Columbia continues to look like a split of NDP orange and Conservative blue

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Julio Montaner

BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS

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B.C. swept up in red tide as Liberals have best showing in decades

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