Fundy Royal; Tory Stronghold

If you’re a gambler and looking for a safe bet in New Brunswick, look no further than old faithful Fundy Royal. With the exception of the Great Tory Massacre of 1993, the riding has been all different shades of blue as far back as the First World War. Even a consolidated left wing vote for a single challenger would likely not overthrow incumbent Rob Moore.

Rob Moore enters the race like a prize fighter against a pack untested ring rookies. Moore has been the member of parliament for Fundy Royal since 2004. He has won his last two victories with more than 50% of the vote, making him one of the few true majority winners for the Conservative Party east of the praries. Despite his undisputed success at the polls, his leader, Stephen Harper has never rewarded Moore with a really great cabinet post. He has had a couple minister of state posts, and served as a parliamentary secretary to a real Minister. Interestingly, Moore was born in Newfoundland, and spent the first half of his life in the United States before returning to Canada. This is interesting because the CPC slogans which railed against Michael Ignatieff (He didn’t come back for you) in the 2011 election proved so popular in the riding.

The Liberals hope to repeat the unexpected success of the 1993 election, when Paul Zed won the riding, with Alaina Lockhart. Lockhart is an accomplished businessperson and entrepreneur. She has also served as a municipal councillor for Norton and because of this, desires to work toward bringing all levels of government to work better together. However, it will be a difficult, if not totally impossible battle. The Liberals have come in third here in 2011 and 2008. In fact, previous Liberal candidate Linda Wilhelm only managed to attain 10% of the vote in 2011.

The New Democrats are currently polling a distant second in the riding. If you were a strategic voter and wanted an “anything but Conservative” result, the NDP would be your safest bet. At the time of this posting, the NDP are 8 points behind Rob Moore according to Eric Grenier of the CBC. Repping the NDP is Jennifer McKenzie; engineer, former school board chair, and champion of ethnic minorities. She may enjoy second place, but it is still going to be an uphill battle. In a riding that has never elected a New Democrat, and only flirted with voting outside the CPC once, McKenzie will have to work tirelessly.

And here begins the sideshow:

Greens are running Stephanie Coburn again. Coburn ran in 2011, only to come in last place with less than 5% of the vote. Coburn also ran in the 2010 and 2014 provincial elections. But this year the Greens are polling as high as 8% in Fundy Royal, so there is some degree of progress.

Pirate Party candidate James Wilson is making a play for Fundy Royal. The Pirates want to loosen copyright law, and incumbent Moore sat on the legislative committee which updated Canada’s copyright laws.

One of the few ridings to have an independent, Fundy Royal gives us David Raymond Amos. A bearded busybody, he posted a series of rejection letters to his twitter that he received from various Canadian and American authorities for concerns, requests, and complaints. His blog includes confidential emails he received from CBC after threatening legal action against them.His specific political aims are, at this point, unclear.

Pirates Beseige New Brunswick

Perhaps beseige is too strong a word. Pirates limp into federal election may be a better fitting headline. Two pirates in fact; James Wilson and Daniel Mlodecki of the Pirate Party have entered the federal election. They aim to commandeer the New Brunswick ridings of Fundy Royal and Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe respectively.

The Pirate Party of Canada is a little fringe party that came to be in October 2009. Not the first of its kind, the party is modelled on pirate parties in Europe. Their aim is simple, if not limited. The majority of the pirate platform centers on internet issues and calling for an end to copyright. The Pirates aim to restore internet privacy, more accessibility to government data, more government transparency, and a less centralized government. If this sounds familiar it is because these are all issues near and dear to the hearts of the Green Party of Canada. However, the Pirate Party feels that the Greens are not pushing these specific issues hard enough (focusing instead on environmental issues).

Certainly, some of these goals are noble but others are problematic. The Pirate stance on copyright and patents, for one, raises a number of compicated legal questions. Free movies and music would obviously benefit the customer but to the detriment of the artist. However, loosening of patents would also make it easier for corporations to share medical research, findings, and formulas thus potentially lowering the price of costly medicines and advancing better cures ad treatments.

The party itself also seems plagued with problems. James Wilson’s candidate page has not been updated since before the Autumn of 2014 when he was living in Alberta. There have also been six leaders since the party was founded just six years ago. The ten candidates who ran in 2011 also faced tough numbers at the polls; none garnered much more than 1% of the vote in any given riding.

Still, Wilson and Mlodecki are pushing ahead under the Pirate banner. Wilson is a former leader of the Pirate Party and a graduate of Mount Allison University. He will be running against Conservative incumbent Rob Moore and four others in a riding expected to remain blue after October 19th. Mlodecki studied business at the University of Western Ontario and runs the popular Moncton bar- Navigator’s Pub. Mlodecki is facing tough opponents from the four major parties.