As rumours of a federal election continue to swirl, a conservative candidate in Burnaby has been confirmed.
The Conservative Party of Canada announced Aug. 3 they have chosen Likky Lavji as its candidate for Burnaby South, challenging federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh.
Lavji is the founder and president of Dante Group, located in Vancouver. He has been a business owner for more than 30 years. He points to local businesses as a vital part of an economy.
“Small businesses are the foundation of our economy,” Lavji says in a news release.
“Only one leader understands this, and it’s why I’ve joined Erin O’Toole’s Conservative team - to secure our economy and secure our future.
“The next federal election is about how we get Canada back on its feet – who has the best plan to create jobs and get our economy back on track,” added Lavji. “Canada’s Recovery Plan from Erin O’Toole is that best plan that will secure jobs and the economy, and get Canadians back to work and our country back on track.”
According to a recent poll by Leger and the Association for Canadian Studies, Justin Trudeau and the federal Liberals remain in the lead if an election was to be called today, with 29% of respondents supporting the current prime minister.
The federal Conservatives sit behind the Liberals, with 24% of respondents saying they would cast a ballot for the party and leader Erin O'Toole.
Singh and the NDP saw only 16% of respondents say they'd vote for the party.
The Bloc Quebecois and Greens held steady at seven and four per cent of decided voters respectively, while the People's Party of Canada had three per cent.
The online survey, conducted July 30 to Aug. 1, polled 2,079 Canadians. It cannot be assigned a margin of error because internet-based polls are not considered random samples.
The Liberals also remained ahead among the 1,737 respondents who identified as decided voters, with 36 per cent saying they would cast their ballots for the governing party – a two per cent increase from mid-July.
That slight bump appears to have come at the expense of the New Democratic Party under leader Singh, which sank by the same amount to 20 per cent of decided voters.
The Conservatives under Erin O'Toole were holding steady at 29 per cent, unchanged from two weeks ago.
- With files from The Canadian Press
