Burnaby South Liberal candidate Richard Lee seems like a nice enough guy.
He’s affable, works hard, has mostly taken the high road during a pretty slimy campaign and showed genuine emotion earlier this week when discussing murdered Burnaby teen Marrisa Shen at a byelection townhall meeting (although I wish the candidates would stop politicizing her death).
But he has a blindspot. He has more baggage than Kim Kardashian going on a week-long cruise.
And he keeps opening himself up to criticism with some of the things he says.
Lee – who replaced trainwreck candidate Karen Wang as the Liberal nominee in the Feb. 25 byelection – represented Burnaby North in the provincial legislature for 16 years as a BC Liberal MLA (he lost to New Democrat Janet Routledge in 2017).
That political experience will feel like an advantage to some voters, but to many others his long tenure with the previous BC Liberal government is a source of anger.
As more details come out about how the BC Liberals allowed money launderers to run rampart all over our province, the anger has only grown.
And many people blame the BC Liberals for allowing the housing affordability issue to grow into a crisis.
Which makes some of his statements about how he’ll work to ensure housing affordability is so laughable.
Imagine the nerve of campaigning on affordability for families after serving in Christy Clark’s corrupt govt that turned a blind eye to money laundering & rampant real estate speculation. #bcpoli #cdnpoli https://t.co/6XQZrapKCx
— Derrick O'Keefe (@derrickokeefe) February 23, 2019
Take, for instance, one of Lee’s recent tweets.
The tweet reads: “I raised my family here in Burnaby, & I want to ensure this community remains an affordable place where families can thrive. That’s why I want to become your MP and work with @justintrudeau on issues like housing affordability, investing in transit, and growing the economy.”
Let those words marinate for a minute.
“I want to ensure this community remains an affordable place.”
That statement implies that, currently, Burnaby is an affordable place and that he’ll work to maintain that.
Yikes. That statement just reeks of ignorance. Burnaby at this moment is not even close to being affordable.
Each time Lee talks about housing affordability, I and many others cringe because of what we’ve seen over the past decade or so. If might be palatable if Lee offered up innovative solutions to the crisis, but he always sounds like he's just mouthing talking points.
This lack of action on housing affordability extends to the federal level, where Liberal and Conservative governments haven’t exactly distinguished themselves on this file. No, I’m not advocating for the federal NDP to be elected. I have no idea if they would take this seriously. They’re promising a lot of money being spent on the issue. All I know is the crisis grew under the watch of the past B.C. and federal governments.
So while it’s great that Lee has a lot of political experience, a lot of political baggage from his past comes along with it.
We’ll see what voters think when the votes are counted up on Monday night.
Stay tuned.
