Penny Priddy's departure puts Surrey-North in play

With the announcement yesterday by NDP MP Penny Priddy that she won’t seek re-election, the race in her riding of Surrey North becomes even more interesting. And it was already one worth watching.

That’s because Surrey North, of course, is Chuck Cadman’s old riding. And it’s also the riding where Chuck’s widow, Dona Cadman, is the Conservative candidate. Dona has been much in the news as the story as unfolded around Stephen Harper’s taped comment on “financial considerations” and the Conservative attempts to secure Chuck’s vote to bring down the Paul Martin government a few years back.

Dona has been caught in the middle, trying to reconcile her statements on the record and those of her daughter and in the Tom Zytaruk book with her desire to remain a Conservative candidate and be loyal to the cause, leading to some interestingly creative statements and affidavits like the recent depends on your definition of a portico filing.

In the last election Priddy, a long-time Surrey politician who held several senior cabinet portfolios in the provincial NDP governments of the 1990s, won rather handily over her Conservative opponent:


We’re losing one interesting dynamic with Priddy leaving the race; she and Dona Cadman were longtime friends, and Cadman actually endorsed Priddy in the last election. That’s a favour I doubt Priddy will be returning, by the way.

It will be interesting to watch this race unfold now though with Priddy’s departure. I suspect a lot of her large margin of victory in 2006 had to do with her personal popularity (helped perhaps the Cadman endorsement), and I doubt a new NDP candidate will be able to hold all that vote.

At first blush this would seem to be a big boost for the Cadman campaign. What I wonder though, and I’m not on the ground in the riding so I can only speculate, but I wonder what impact this whole Cadman affair is having on Dona’s chances in the riding. Chuck was extremely popular and I’d have said before that she was a virtual shoe-in, or at least a coin-toss with Priddy. But as the controversy around the vote wooing has unfolded, and with Dona caught in the middle seemingly contradicting herself while trying to prop-up the Conservative libel case, could this be hurting her credibility, and her support? I don’t know, but its worth watching.

The Liberals finished a distant third in this riding in the last campaign. I’m not sure if they’ve nominated a candidate yet or not. But with Priddy’s departure, and the controversy around Dona, there may be a chance for the Liberals to sneak-up the middle here with the right candidate. It’s a challenge, but as I said things are getting more interesting in Surrey-North.

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