I didn’t really know who was Mark Wiens was until a few days ago. But I recognize those flyers, the ones they show in the news reports about Wiens’ history as a local real estate agent. The NDP accuses now-Liberal candidate in Vancouver East Mark Wiens of bragging about contributing to high housing prices. They have a point (a strong point).

But my goal here isn’t really to talk about the very sensitive issue of high housing costs. (If you’re not from Vancouver, or perhaps Toronto, I’m not sure you would really get just how sensitive that issue really is). I’m more interested in what’s apparently happening in that riding of Vancouver East and what it says about this very weird election.

(Granted, we have a history of weird elections in Canada. Remember 1993? That was something.)

As soon as I learned Wiens is running against Jenny Kwan, I thought, oh pfft… this doesn’t matter. Who cares? There’s no way Jenny Kwan is losing in Vancouver East.

Then I checked votewell.ca and discovered that, as of today, Vancouver East is sitting at 40% +/- 9 NDP (Kwan), 35% +/- 8 Liberal (Wiens). Jenny Kwan might actually be in a battle here, which makes me think… what the hell is going on.

Some background here: Jenny Kwan has held elected office in Vancouver politics at the municipal, provincial, and federal level since 1993. In 2001, she was one of only two NDP MLAs left standing when the BC Liberals (our province’s right-wing party, which evolved into BC United, which collapsed very recently, its members moving to the newly revived BC Conservatives) won every other seat, kicking the NDP out of government after 10 years in power.

Jenny Kwan is an institution in Vancouver East. In her three federal election wins she was at least 20 percentage points ahead of the second place finisher every single time. As the provincial MLA for Vancouver-Mount Pleasant, she was consistently reelected with no real opposition.

For Kwan to be fighting for her seat is, to me, pretty shocking. I suspect Wiens — who was acclaimed as the Liberal candidate — didn’t even expect to be so competitive. After all, who the hell could beat Jenny Kwan in Vancouver East?

Of course, this is what you get when the NDP is running in single digits in the national polls. There’s real risk of a seat count so low that the NDP might even lose official party status in the Commons.

We’ve known this for a couple of weeks now, but it wasn’t until I saw the Vancouver-East numbers that it really hit home what that meant. A long time community activist losing her seat to a real estate agent who profited from **that issue — I won’t say it. It is too painful and sensitive**.

All because of a massive Liberal wave and a fear of sending even a minority Conservative government to the House.

So it was really only today that I began to consider what has smartly become the NDP’s argument: that neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives should have a majority and that we should elect the NDP to hold the balance of power.

Ultimately, I don’t agree. I still want a big ol’ Mark Carney-led Liberal majority. I think we should give him his five years. Just give him his five years, let’s take this ride with Mark Carney and see where it leads.

But that’s the rub: let’s take this ride with Mark Carney. I’m not keen on Mark Wiens or whatever anonymous, random backbenchers he’s got coming along to form government. In our parliamentary system, Wiens wouldn’t have any power anyway. His job would be to sit silent, except to say, “hear, hear!” during his party’s pronouncements in Question Period, and to vote with the government when told to do so.

Kwan also wouldn’t have any power, technically. Except, I suppose, behind the scenes if the NDP did have another supply and confidence agreement with the government and she and her caucus colleagues influenced policy of the minority Liberal government.

Isn’t that what I want? Another Liberal minority government with the NDP there to negotiate social policy?

Actually, no. I worry those agreements don’t always result in policy or direction with broad appeal, and in a few years, the left will end up right back here — fighting tooth and nail to prevent a Conservative government from taking over.

Only this time, Mark Carney won’t be here to save us. I mean, he’ll be here. But he’ll have a few years of governing, so he’ll be tainted. We need a good five years of solid centrist policy or the Conservative threat will just always be hot on our heels.

But for this time around, please, Vancouver East. Please. Send Jenny Kwan to Ottawa instead of Mark Wiens. Please. The Liberal majority is poised to be massive. They can throw at least this one to the NDP.