In a tight race for the riding of Surrey North, Conservative candidate Dona Cadman's rivals are hoping her low profile and stance on the much-hated harmonized sales tax will be her downfall.
Cadman won the 2008 election by a little more than 1,106 votes over her NDP rival. This time, Jasbir Sandhu is running for the New Democrats, and he's banking on his party's sudden rise in popularity to best the Tories.
"They're trusting Jack Layton more and you've seen the surge in the last couple of weeks," Sandhu told CTV News.
His party is now polling in second place behind the Conservatives, and making up ground fast. In an attempt to get out the vote, Sandhu's campaign is taking on very specific targets.
"We have a number of houses identified, where we will have our volunteers based, pulling the votes from those zones," he said.
The working class and heavily South Asian riding was New Democrat territory before Cadman's slim victory last time around. It traditionally has one of the lowest voter turnouts in the country.
The NDP have been exploiting the public distaste for the HST -- brought in through provincial deals with the Conservative government -- in ridings across B.C., and Surrey North is no exception.
"She said she would vote against it and then she went to Ottawa and she did not even show up for the vote," Sandhu said.
CTV News made several attempts to speak with Cadman, the widow of maverick MP Chuck Cadman. She didn't respond to numerous requests for comment, and critics say she's maintained that low profile throughout the campaign, not even showing up for all-candidates meetings.
Cadman's campaign's manager says she's too busy to comment.
Liberal candidate Shinder Purewal says that Cadman's absence at debates could hurt her prospects.
"I think the people of Surrey North are disappointed that the sitting MP is not there to defend her vision, defend her party, defend her performance," he said.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Mi-Jung Lee
