Less than two months after being kicked out of the federal Liberal caucus, Jody Wilson-Raybould has announced she plans to seek re-election as an independent.
Revealing her decision at a brand new community hall in her Vancouver-Granville riding on Monday, the former attorney general and Canada’s first Indigenous justice minister said she wants to remain in government because it’s "clear…we need to do politics differently."
"We sometimes hear that politics is a team sport, that politics is a blood sport," Wilson-Raybould said. "I do believe in the importance of a strong team, but I'm not sure that there has to be any blood involved. And it is far too serious a business to call it a sport -- after all, it is the lives of people and our future that is at stake."
The MP who accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his aides of consistent and inappropriate pressure to convince her to intervene in the SNC-Lavalin case, said she received more than 15,000 emails and letters with many encouraging her to press forward.
"The overwhelming message I received was clear," she said. "That partisanship is trumping principle. That exclusion is trumping inclusion."
When questioned whether she views this year’s race as a referendum on her track record, or on the prime minister’s, Wilson-Raybould called it "a referendum on how we can do politics differently."
Voters like Dr. Charles Webb, a family doctor with an office in the riding, told CTV News Vancouver he hopes Wilson-Raybould will stand up for issues that matter to constituents the same way he says she stood up to the prime minister and her former party.
"One of our biggest issues across the country is access to primary care," Webb said. "I’m hoping that the independents can shine a spotlight on this need."
Wilson-Raybould called her announcement "a new beginning," and continually brought her remarks back to local voters and local issues, pledging to represent more voices and more perspectives.
While some political watchers expected her and independent Markham, Ontario MP Jane Philpott to join the Greens, Wilson-Raybould referred to the party as "natural and necessary allies," especially on the issue of climate change.
Philpott went a bit further in her nearly simultaneous announcement on the other side of the country.
"The only people that are the boss of me right now, are you," she told a raucous room packed with cheering supporters.
In an exchange in Ottawa, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said she would have stepped down from her leadership role had Wilson-Raybould or Philpott expressed interest in leading the party.
"Short of what I would have most have liked, it’s not a bad outcome," May said.
Wilson-Raybould acknowledged the challenge of running as an independent, and while pollsters say she has the name recognition and the advantage of being the incumbent, there’s also a chance she might split the progressive vote.
In 2015, Wilson-Raybould catapulted to victory with nearly 44 per cent of the vote in Vancouver-Granville, then a new riding that spanned from False Creek through Shaughnessy to Marpole. The NDP and Conservative candidates came in neck-and-neck around 26 per cent.
"You could have a scenario where the Conservatives can get that riding with 31, 32 per cent of the vote," said Mario Canseco, President of Research Co. "All they need is five or six points."
Richard Johnston, a Canadian politics expert at UBC took it a step further.
"I think we’re…looking at the distinct possibility Conservatives (in BC) will make massive gains in seats with almost no gain in the popular vote."
Canseco said there was a "a chance" Wilson-Raybould could win, depending on who the major parties nominate as their candidates, but said a Liberal opponent in the riding would likely face the largest uphill battle.
"She’s confident that she knows her riding well. That the people who voted for the Liberals in the last election will stay with her," Canseco said.
When asked about her long-term plan in federal politics or any potential leadership aspirations, Wilson-Raybould said right now she’s focused on winning in October.
"Twenty years from now, what’s my plan?" she mused. "I never think that far ahead."
