Given that Jha consistently stood up for his constituents you would expect him to be rewarded especially now that the government supports his view as well. The Conservatives changed their mind as well so both parties are consistently mind changers!
Battle is fierce for NDP 'safe seat'
Contest in Radisson could be one of the closest in the 2007 campaign
Sun May 20 2007
By Mia Rabson
DOWNRIGHT nasty and bad for the environment.
They are perhaps the best terms to describe the election race in Radisson, as the Tories and NDP go head to head in what could be one of the closest contests in campaign 2007.
A lot of trees gave their lives for this race, as Tory Linda West and NDP incumbent Bidhu Jha deliver scads of glossy flyers taking multiple jabs at each other over everything from rec centres to pig plants to privatizing health care.
It is also a repeat of the 2003 ballot, with Jha, West and Liberal Murray Cliff the choices for Radisson voters for the second time in a row.
Radisson is a mix of middle-class suburban and working-class neighbourhoods, wrapped around major retail and industrial parks, that stretches along much of Winnipeg's eastern border.
Long thought of as an NDP safe seat -- it has voted NDP all but twice since its creation in 1958 -- it is now one of the most hotly contested races between the NDP and Tories.
And much of the talk has been about pigs.
Radisson would have been the site of the proposed OlyWest pig plant and residents and business owners in the riding fought hard against it, fearing the smell and the added truck traffic.
To see the importance of this issue in the riding -- and the closeness of the race -- one must only look to see Tory Leader Hugh McFadyen switching his party's opinion on the plant to the negative in March and then Premier Gary Doer following suit just a few weeks ago.
West has been campaigning against the pig plant from the start, and she said Doer's campaign-hour conversion to not support the plant didn't sway voters.
"Their attitude is it's been 18 months of suffering at the hands of the current government," she said.
At the height of the pig plant protests, Jha stood up for his constituents' concerns about the plant in a rare act of defiance against Doer, speaking out against the plant's location despite his government's support for it.
He said West's constant attacks against OlyWest are ridiculous because nobody supports the plant anymore.
"I am being attacked for something that is a dead issue now," said Jha. "She is campaigning as if it's not dead." West also issued a flyer attacking the NDP over its pledge to expand the Southdale community centre and concerns about what that means for nearby Winakwa community centre in Radisson.
"It just played into that feeling
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