Neil Smith (politician)

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Neil Smith (born July 4, 1960) ran as a socialist New Democratic Party candidate in the riding of Richmond, British Columbia during the January 2006 federal election. Narrowly beating Dale Jackaman for the nomination.

Originally from Manchester, England, where he graduated from the University of Salford. Smith spent four years serving as a volunteer in the Philippines' technical education system. His experiences there motivated him to run campaign adverts in support of the goals of the Make Poverty History campaign and advocate that health care remain public in Canada. ^[1] He also supported the construction of 40,000 public housing units by the Canadian government and has been a vocal advocate for affordable housing in Richmond. Smith also said he wanted to speed up the process for recognition of immigrant qualifications.

Smith ran a positive campaign but recognized that many people feel a strong need to strategically vote. In Richmond this was exacerbated by a very vocal third party campaign by Dale Jackaman, the previous NDP candidate, against the Conservative Darrel Reid. Smith however felt that sustaining the NDP vote under these circumstances reflected an increasing dissatisfaction with the performance of the incumbent Raymond Chan and his own credibility as a candidate. Before the events of this election, Smith had been a strong advocate for electoral reform and supported the British Columbia referendum on the Single Transferable Vote. Presentation summary to Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform

On January 23, 2006 Smith received 5944 votes (14.07% of the total votes), and was defeated by Raymond Chan.^[2]