Times Colonist E-edition

Olivia Chow campaigns with Jagmeet Singh, urges people not to vote strategically

KELLY GERALDINE MALONE

TORONTO — Olivia Chow urged people to go to the polls with hope, not fear, as she joined NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh in her late husband Jack Layton’s former riding.

“I wish other leaders, especially Liberals, don’t use fear as a factor,” Chow said in TorontoDanforth.

“Because fear is very short term. Hope is much longer term, is much more optimistic and it builds confidence, builds our country.”

Singh’s push ahead of Monday’s election has remained laser-focused on criticizing Justin Trudeau and discouraging voters from casting a ballot for the Liberals just to keep the Conservatives out of power. The riding has been in Liberal Julie Dabrusin’s hands since 2015.

Chow, a former NDP politician, said the idea of strategic voting is “tiresome” and has been used against the New Democrats for 50 years. She said she believes Layton would have seen Singh as a courageous leader.

“Here’s a person that is connecting with ordinary people and he would be mightily proud of the campaign that Jagmeet has been running,” she said.

“I think he would say: ‘Don’t let people tell you it can’t be done.’”

Layton led the NDP to its best showing in the 2011 federal election. Just a little over three months after that historic electoral breakthrough, Layton died of cancer.

Singh has said he’d like to see the riding named after his late predecessor.

Chow’s call was questioned by the Liberals, who pointed to NDP flyers distributed in the riding Green Party Leader Annamie Paul is seeking. The flyers encourage people to vote NDP and accuse the Greens of infighting. The Liberals say that amounts to a push for strategic voting.

Earlier, Singh faced a group of demonstrators at the Toronto riding of Davenport calling on the NDP leader to make the Fairy Creek old-growth logging standoff in British Columbia an election issue.

Almost 1,000 people have been arrested in protests over the logging of old-growth forests in the area on Vancouver Island since May when the RCMP started to enforce a B.C. Supreme Court injunction against blockades erected in several areas near logging sites. The forestry company is in court this week to apply for a one-year extension of the injunction.

SEPT. 20 ELECTION

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2021-09-17T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-09-17T07:00:00.0000000Z

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