Incumbent:
Joyce Murray (Liberal | 2008)
Candidates:
Liberal: Wade Grant
Conservative: Ken Charko
New Democratic: Alim Fakirani
Green: Tom Digby
People’s: John Odan Ede
2021 Results:
Liberal - 43 per cent
Conservative - 29 per cent
New Democratic - 19 per cent
Green - six per cent
People’s - two per cent
The western outpost of Laurentian liberalism, Vancouver Quadra has gone for the Liberals since 1984, when John Turner delivered the only Liberal gain of the night amidst a historic Progressive Conservative landslide. Since then, barring a scare from Deborah Meredith in a 2008 by-election, Quadra has held strong for the Grits. With five-term incumbent Joyce Murray retiring, the Liberals have now tapped former Musqueam councillor and longtime community volunteer Wade Grant to carry their banner.
Grant caught his first big break in provincial politics as special advisor to then-premier Christy Clark on Indigenous relations. He followed up his stint at the Premier’s Office with an independent run for Vancouver city council in 2018, eventually transitioning back to work for the Musqueam Indian Band.
Grant faces a host of candidates from the left to the right. His Conservative challenger is Ken Charko, proprietor of the Dunbar Theatre, longtime supporter of the centre-right Non-Partisan Association and 2022 city council candidate for the party. The NDP is running Alim Fakirani, a PhD student at UBC, while the Greens are fielding a surprisingly high-profile contender in park board commissioner Tom Digby.
For Grant, the task ahead is simple. Quadra is made up of two provincial ridings: Vancouver-Point Grey and Vancouver-Quilchena. Driven by educational polarization, BC United’s collapse and a strong machine on behalf of Eby in his home riding, both saw the best results for the BC NDP in their history. First-time candidate Callista Ryan, still in her mid-twenties, surged to nearly 40 per cent of the vote and slashed the right-of-centre’s margin victory by more than half.
To match these performances, Grant needs to rally left-of-centre support that has deserted the Liberals since 2015 – particularly in UBC, Kitsilano and to a lesser extent West Point Grey. These defections largely came from environmentalist voters disenchanted with Trudeau’s decision to buy a pipeline, renters squeezed by housing costs, and academics who had fallen out of love with the Liberals. However, the polarizing dynamic of this election, combined with Quadra being the most educated riding in all of British Columbia could help Grant woo back these voters and even match Murray’s score during peak Trudeaumania.
Hugh Chan is a UBC student specializing in international relations and data science.
