09 05 11	binriso 156.34.211.248
I think the NDP will hold this seat (and every other one where they have an incumbent running). Probably close but the polling in the Vancouver/Suburbs area show only a small Liberal lead which takes into account their strong seats in Quilchena, Langara West Van seats North Van seats other than Lonsdale and Richmond Area seats. By contrast most of the NDPs seats are fairly close other than Hastings and Mt Pleasant and vote efficiency will likely propel them to a better result in 2009 and probably even a victory.
	09 05 11	VancityProgressive 24.87.32.141
This is a battleground and ground zero on the Carbon Tax issue, but ultimately Green Progressives between Fir and Oak streets are not going to vote for offshore oil and gas exploration and open net fish farms. C-Tax aside, this riding will be Jenn McGinn's again.
	09 05 11	Cambie Village Dave 209.205.106.163
Interesting, that McGinn's office has contacted me constantly, but only mail from MacDairmid. My wife and I have both voted NDP, yet during the by-election, we got a number of telephone calls for the Libs. This time nothing. Where are they focusing their efforts?
	09 05 08	vancouver politics expert 24.83.13.90
this isn't the old vancouver-little mountain riding, even though the ndp did win that riding too.. macdiarmid signs own west of oak, but mcginn owns east of oak, the problem for macdiarmid is 5 times more people live east of oak. since this general riding was created for the '91 election the ndp has won it 3 times and the libs have won it 2 times, the city of vancouver is the core base of support for the ndp in the lower mainland and the west side north of 16th is heavily ndp. the liberals just don't have the support to take this riding,
	09 05 08	Globe and Mail 204.9.162.70
Candidate's gibe puts James in hot seat NDP Leader who pledged a smear-free race watches as candidate takes shot at Liberal rival's personal finances JUSTINE HUNTER May 7, 2009 at 12:01 PM EDT VANCOUVER ? B.C. New Democratic Party Leader Carole James has maintained she is running a campaign free of personal smears. Yesterday, she watched silently as one of her candidates branded a Liberal rival as dishonest and raised personal financial details as an election issue. At a campaign rally, Ms. James was standing beside her candidate, Jenn McGinn, who told the crowd of NDP supporters that Margaret MacDiarmid should be dumped as the Liberal candidate in Vancouver-Fairview for misleading voters about whether she could afford to buy a home in the city. Ms. McGinn later provided reporters with copies of Dr. MacDiarmid's personal property holdings to demonstrate the Liberal candidate's wealth, and handed out a news release that further delved into her family finances. ?MacDiarmid and her husband - the Liberal insider Robert Hobbs who was handpicked to head the B.C. Utilities Commission in 2003 - each pulled down regular six-figure annual incomes in recent years,? the statement read. In a later interview, Ms. James defended Ms. McGinn, saying it was a valid issue to raise and that the comments were understandable because her candidate is facing a tough battle to hang on to the seat. ?I think what you saw was Jenn's enthusiasm in what will be a tight race,? Ms. James said. The incident points to an increasingly tough tone in the countdown to the May 12 provincial election. Last Sunday during the televised leaders debate, Liberal Leader Gordon Campbell suggested Ms. James is not up to the job of being premier: ?Well, I think Ms. James you should understand, I know this is a big job and hard to get a handle on.? Ms. James has been pressed on the issue of negative campaigning before. She has distanced herself from the ?Does Gordon Campbell Hate You?? ads that have been produced by COPE 378, a union with close ties to the B.C. NDP. Two week ago during a leaders debate on the radio, the airwaves went dead for several seconds after Ms. James said she didn't engage in personal attacks. The moderator, respected journalist Bill Good, later said he was not trying to make a statement but that he paused because he was taken aback by her claim. Dr. MacDiarmid was incredulous at the time. She recalls laughing out loud when she heard that long moment of radio silence. Yesterday in an interview, she said she found Ms. McGinn's comments at the rally ?incredibly personal.? She did not dispute that she told a round-table meeting last week that she and her husband had looked around Vancouver for a home and decided they couldn't afford to buy. ?Never did I mean to suggest we are anything but well-off, we are both professionals with good incomes. ... I really apologize if people there were misled by what I said.? Ms. James said personal attacks are inappropriate but she believes Dr. MacDiarmid opened the door on her personal finances by speaking about them in public. Ms. James spent the day in campaign rallies across Metro Vancouver where she talked about the Liberal record. The stop in Ms. McGinn's campaign office was meant to highlight a lack of affordable housing. For the past week, Ms. James has emphasized that her party has a ?positive vision? for B.C. and not an hour earlier, the NDP Leader told another rally: ?I'm going to end the politics of division.?
	09 04 24	Just a thougth 154.20.173.253
Margaret MacDiarmid is a strong candidate. She has more political experience than her opposition, in that she ran the largest professional ?union? in the province, the BCMA. She knows how to work with government, public and private sector. It may be a tight race, but she'll come out the winner.
	09 04 23	96.49.110.185
I'm tilting this towards Dr. Margaret MacDiarmid right now. Last election, the dynamic Gregor Robertson won this only by about 1,000 votes, and that was while the BC Liberals held only a 5% lead of BC NDP province-wide. The BC Liberals now have a 17-point lead; I think this will swing back to the BC Liberals. Don't be fooled by by-election last fall -- they produce abnormal results due to low voter turnout.
	09 04 21	VanToria 206.191.104.98
?This riding has the highest concentration of health-care workers in B.C.? That is not a reason this riding will go Liberal. If anything, it's a strike against the Liberals. The wealthiest people in this riding (maybe doctors etc) live in the lower density shaugnessy area. The higher density polls along Main carry more votes for the NDP. ?Also, the Canada Line will now run right through this riding and many walk to work at the local hospitals, making Fairview one of the biggest winners from the carbon tax and the accompanying tax cuts.? Again, this is a strike against the Liberals, not a plus. Residents and business owners are still angry about the government's bungling with the Canada Line.
	09 04 20	ArmchairPundit 207.6.74.137
This riding has the highest concentration of health-care workers in B.C. It is also the most affluent riding that the NDP holds, making it not a natural fit for the party. These facts are important, as it is likely that Bill 29 and the concomitant abrogation of nurses' contracts by the BC Liberals in 2003 that lost them this seat last time out. With a new contract in hand and labour peace with the health care unions for the forseeable future, will they nurse (sorry) their past grudges or vote with their wallets for the Liberals? Also, the Canada Line will now run right through this riding and many walk to work at the local hospitals, making Fairview one of the biggest winners from the carbon tax and the accompanying tax cuts. It is true that McGinn held this one for the NDP in last year's by-election, but the turnout was abysmal and that was at the Liberals' low ebb in the opinion polls. Without Gregor to challenge and a 17 point lead in hand, this one should go to the Liberals on election day.
	09 04 18	Benson 207.81.43.135
I think if Jenn McGinn keeps working as hard as she has been, she can keep this riding. It'll be close no matter what but Margaret McDiarmid's association with the private health care lobby certainly makes her a scary option for a possible future Health Minister. McDiarmid's office is nowhere to be seen but McGinn and volunteers have been seen out doorknocking and mainstreeting since before the campaign started.
	09 04 04	gorman 216.19.183.147
A true tossup. McGinn has been in office for such a short period of time that she will not have the usual advantages of incumbency, and as someone else pointed out, she does not have the 'star power' of Gregor Robertson. That said, the NDP demonstrated its ability to get out the vote in the by-election and hold onto the seat, so it is hard to say that Robertson's win in 2005 was a fluke. The boundary changes make this slightly more favourable for the Liberals than in 2005, although Robertson still would have won on the new boundaries. Turnout will be the key - if Liberals are motivated to get out and vote, this is probably their best chance to steal an NDP seat in the Lower Mainland. This one will go down to the wire.
	09 03 30	Boiled Frog 66.119.167.130
I anticipate that there will be a backlash against the Liberals here because of the Cambie Street construction and their indifference to the business owners and residents there. This riding will go NDP.
	09 03 28	Nick L 24.83.5.11
we all know that NDP will get advantage when the voting rate is low such as the last by-election. But this time Margaret Macdiarmid can win this election about 1000 votes since she knows the main point how to win the election--find the method to raise the voting rate espicailly the 25% Chinese voters in that riding.
	09 02 15	Bob 24.69.143.24
McGinn is nowhere near as strong of a candidate as Gregor was. This riding should be a lot closer than it was during the By-Election.
	09 02 14	TAN 76.67.19.216
Unlike the situation in Vancouver-West End, I think it's fair to assume that Margaret MacDiarmid will turn in a better performance for the BC Liberals in the general election than she did in the byelection. Her ability to turn out the rightish vote, at the very least, ought to be better in a general. I'd be curious to see what the numerical impact of losing those waterfront polls to Vancouver-False Creek will be. That said, if the NDP do hold--and my gut feeling is that they will fairly narrowly--I think it will be an interesting piece of evidence that the political divide in Vancouver these days isn't so much east-west as it is north-south. Indeed, the pattern that the Jim Green/Sam Sullivan and Gregor Robertson/Peter Ladner electoral maps show that some of Vancouver's older, wealthier and well-established neighborhoods--Kits, Fairview and even parts of Shaughnessy--seem to be opting for centre-left moderates rather than the rightish options on offer. A rough parallel would be the demise of the Tory vote in Toronto's Rosedale.