‘Independent, strong voices matter’: Wilson-Raybould wins Vancouver Granville as Independent

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – After a tight three-way race with the Liberals and Conservatives, independent Jody Wilson-Raybould came ahead in the final moments to win the riding of Vancouver Granville.

Her victory comes a year after she went from being Canada’s attorney general and a star Liberal MP for the riding, to an independent MP and a key player in the SNC-Lavalin affair, during which she testified that she had been inappropriately pressured by the Prime Minister’s Office to intervene in a case involving the engineering giant.

Despite the difficulty of winning as an independent, Wilson-Raybould remained popular in her Vancouver-area riding after the scandal, coming in with more than 30 per cent of the vote.

Liberal candidate Taleeb Noormohamed came in second, followed by Conservative Zach Segal, who came in third.

After winning her seat, Wilson-Raybould ditched her prepared speech and started off by saying “holy moly,” and expressing how happy she was to be there.

“This is an incredibly humbling moment and experience, like all other experiences that I’ve had, but tonight is different. Tonight we accomplished together — something extraordinary. We accomplishment showing Ottawa, showing our political process that independent, strong voices matter,” she said.

She congratulated the Liberals on winning, all while joking that a minority government isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“I do think that the best laws and the best policies come from a minority government situation,” she said.

Wilson-Raybould also gave a shout out to Jane Philpott during her speech. Wilson-Raybould’s decision to leave cabinet and sit an an independent was followed by Philpott, who failed in her attempt to win in the Ontario riding of Markham-Stouffville on Monday.

Trudeau eventually kicked both women out of the Liberal caucus and many of their supporters saw it as vindication when the federal ethics commissioner concluded that Trudeau had violated the Conflict of Interest Act by improperly pressuring Wilson-Raybould to stop the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin.

Independent confidence

Before the election, Wilson-Raybould told NEWS 1130 she was confident in her re-election, while acknowledging winning as an independent wasn’t going to be easy. Even though she was booted from the Liberal party, she said her time in federal politics wasn’t over.

Her campaign, she said, focused on being an advocate for the people in her riding on issues like living costs, transportation, climate change, and democracy.

Many people in her riding had said they were proud of her for “speaking out” about the SNC-Lavalin affair.

“I think that we have come to a place where political parties have centralized too much power and we live in a very hyper-partisan world in Ottawa and I think that’s to the detriment of democracy,” she said.

Each of the major parties had a candidate in the Vancouver Granville riding hoping to unseat Wilson-Raybould.

She has represented the Vancouver Granville riding since 2015.

-With files from the Canadian Press