2005 Candidates (as received from Elections B.C.):
Mark Allen Conrad Gueffroy, British Columbia Marijuana Party
Carole Taylor, BC Liberal Party
Anita Romaniuk, New Democratic Party of B.C.
Doug Warkentin, Green Party of BC
Maps from Elections B.C.
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Districts Profile:
This south-central Vancouver riding borders the Fraser River on the south, Fraser and Main streets on the east, 33rd and 29th avenues in the north, and Angus Drive and Granville Street in the west. Originally a working-class community, this area has developed into a more up-market suburb. It includes the communities of Oakridge, Marpole and South Granville, as well as Vancouver Community College, Van Dusen Garden and Queen Elizabeth Park. Retail trade and health and social services are the main employers. The average family income – $62,882 – is below the B.C. average, but unemployment, at 8.3 per cent, is standard. At 28.8 per cent the riding has the province's ninth-highest proportion of university-educated residents. Ethnically, Vancouver-Langara is remarkably diverse, with B.C.'s fourth-highest proportion of immigrants (57.7 per cent), fourth-highest proportion of visible minorities (66 per cent), third-highest proportion of ethnic Chinese residents (50.2 per cent), and 10th-highest proportion of South Asians (12.3 per cent).
Political History:
The incumbent in Vancouver-Langara is Liberal Val Anderson. In 2001 he received nearly four times more votes than runner-up Peter Prontzos of the NDP. Anderson had served here since 1991, in which year he defeated New Democrat Peter Kendall. His win that year was by 467 votes; by 1996 the margin of victory grew tenfold as he repelled NDP challenger Ragini Rankin. Before 1991 this area was part of Vancouver South, a two-member district. MLAs included New Democrats Jack Radford and Daisy Webster (1972-75), Socred Stephen Rogers (1975-91), and Rogers' Socred seatmates William Strongman (1975-79), Peter Hyndman (1979-83), and Russ Fraser (who served from 1983 to 1991, finishing third that year to Anderson and Kendall).
Voter turnout in 2001 was was 67.4 per cent, below the provincial average of 70.95 per cent.
In Vancouver-Kingsway, David Emerson's old riding, the Conservatives aren't considered to really be in the running; the real competition is between the Liberal's Wendy Yuan and the NDP's Don Davies with Green's darkhorse candidate presumed to be not in the front.

The history of the riding can, in some measure, be read in the parties fielding candidates; in addition to the four national parties there are contestants from Libertarian, Communist, and Marxist-Leninist parties. The rich diversity of the riding has less than half of all households reporting English as the first language at home.

Emerson cited this diversity after announcing he would not be running for a third term. "The reality is, Kingsway was an eminently winnable seat," said the Conservative Minister. "Not because I'm a hugely popular fellow in Kingsway, but because of vote splits and the way the first-past-the-post system works."

Key in those vote splits are issues dividing the Liberal and NDP candidates. Naturalized Canadian Yuan points to her immigrant history, giving her an empathy with the immigrant and ethnic neighborhoods of the riding. “I came with limited means but through hard work, I got recognized and became a successful businesswoman. I understand what immigrants have to go through to reach what they want.”

“I really respect and appreciate and like the multicultural fabric of our riding,” says her NDP opponent Davies. “That’s why I live in Kingsway. I’m the only candidate who lives here with roots here.” The Teamster's lawyer is originally from Edmonton, but has been living in Vancouver environs since 1991.

The Conservative party candidate Salomon Rayek is not responding to press inquiries from several sources, and is cited as an example of a long-shot candidate - a candidate with little likelihood of being elected yet represents the party anyway. 

Doug Warkentin, the Green Party candidate, ran for Member of Legislative Assembly in BC's 2005 elections in the Vancouver-Langara provincial electoral district, coming in third to the Liberal's Carol Taylor. He's lived for the past three years in the riding, an engineer and small business owner who has a history of community involvement across south Vancouver. "I see the neighbourhoods in and around Kingsway as a great place to build on the natural vibrancy of the small business sector as a backbone for ethnically and economically diverse communities."

Matt Kadioglu of the Libertarians is a relative newcomer with one previous campaign, while Donna Petersen (Marxist-Leninist) and Kimball Cariou (Communist) each have four previous contests according to  Pundits Guide.

The stage for this fight was set in 2006, when newly-elected Liberal Dave Emerson crossed the floor and directly into the Conservative Cabinet, first as Minister of International Trade then as Minister of Foreign Affairs following the resignation of Maxime Bernier. His defection stirred a firestorm of controversy locally in the staunchly left-leaning riding, which had elected a Progressive Conservative candidate exactly once since it's creation in 1953 - during the 1958 Diefenbaker landslide.

In 2004 then-Prime Minister Paul Martin parachuted Emerson in, displacing the brewing contest between incumbent Liberal Sophia Leung and Ms Yuan. Emerson won the riding against Ian Waddell, the NDP candidate who had represented the riding from 1979-1988, and again by a wider margin in 2006 when other Liberals fell as victims of the Sponsorship Scandal.