While one can never predict the outcome of any election before it has begun, logic would dictate that the Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon riding — of which the Pemberton Valley is part — is Chuck Strahl’s to lose in the normally small-c conservative riding in a fall election, which was expected to be called this week or next.

Strahl, the riding’s current Member of Parliament and the governing Tories’ Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, has won five consecutive times in the riding that was known as Fraser Valley East in 1993, Fraser Valley in 1997 and 2000 and Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon in 2004 and 2006. In the past two elections, Strahl polled 53.7 and 56 per cent of the vote, respectively, with no other candidate garnering more than 21 per cent either time.

Strahl, who was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer before the 2006 election, has maintained throughout the current 2 ½-year term that the treatment he has undergone has been successful and that he feels great.

Strahl, who has maintained a busy schedule during that time, was acclaimed as the Tories’ candidate “a while back,” Conservative Riding Association President Duncan Goguillot said on Tuesday (Sept. 2).

Neither the Liberals, New Democrats nor Greens had nominated a candidate as of Tuesday.

Stan Rogers, president of the Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon Liberal Riding Association, on Friday (Aug. 29) said the Grits had “at least one, if not two, potentially interested candidates.” He said the Liberals are prepared to call a nomination meeting as soon as an election is called.

“We have not called a nomination meeting because, frankly, I’ve gotten weary in the past year and a half watching the parties jockey on potential election dates,” Rogers said.

Al Ens, the New Democratic Party’s Riding Association president, said in an email to The Question on Monday that the association has both an election planning committee and a candidate search committee, but as yet does not have a candidate.

“I will be meeting with the above-named committee chairs in the next week or so to review and further our readiness for the next federal election, whenever that might be,” Ens wrote.

Amanda Brown, an official with the Green Party of Canada’s B.C. office in Vancouver, said it’s the party’s objective to have a candidate in every riding in the country save one — Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion’s Montreal riding of St. Laurent-Cartierville. That’s because of an agreement Dion and Green Party Leader Elizabeth May reached to not run a candidate in each other’s riding.

Brown said that while the Green’s didn’t yet have a candidate, Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon is “an important riding” for the Greens and their lead B.C. organizer, Rob Hines.

In 2006, New Democrat Malcolm James placed second behind Strahl with 20.89 per cent of the vote. Liberal Myra Sweeney finished third with 16.9 per cent, followed by the Greens’ Ed Baye (4.02 per cent), the Canadian Heritage Party’s Ron Gray (1.95 per cent) and Marxist-Leninist candidate Dorothy-Jean O’Donnell (0.24 per cent).