The NDP and Green leaders are campaigning on Vancouver Island Tuesday, while their Liberal and Conservative counterparts stick to Ontario.
The NDP’s Tom Mulcair has events planned in Nanaimo, Parksville and Courtenay.
Elizabeth May of the Greens is going to be in her Saanich Gulf Islands riding, where she’s going to make an announcement on pipelines and tankers.
Political analyst and former VIU prof Allan Warnke says we’ll be seeing a lot of the leaders in the Island Coastal region over the coming weeks.
“By all accounts, taking a look at the various polls, BC is up for grabs,” he says. “So you’ll see the leaders bounce in; bounce out. Go to the Island for a day; then bounce back somewhere else, to Alberta or wherever. We’re going to see a lot of that.”
But, Warnke also says despite the potentially decisive role for BC in the October vote, the most important battleground remains southern Ontario.
May might end up as the only leader to see any long term impact from the first debate… because even though Green polling numbers are down, more people want to see her in future debates.
“You see an overwhelming view of Canadians that, still, she should be involved in the debates and it’s going to be hard to exclude her without some blow-back on the other leaders,” he says.
So far May has not been invited to the upcoming Munk Centre or Globe and Mail sponsored debates.
