LEGAL WEED ACCUSATION PUTS HEED ON DEFENCE

Vancouver-Fraserview Race Turned Bitter

The race in Vancouver-Fraserview has become possibly the nastiest
provincial election campaign in the city. The main combatants are
Liberal candidate Kash Heed and NDP challenger Gabriel Yiu, who has
spent a great deal of his campaign criticizing Heed.

The biggest fight has been over drug policy.

Yiu has accused Heed, the former police chief in West Vancouver, of
wanting to legalize marijuana. Yiu claims Heed supported legalization
when he was a member of the Vancouver Police Department, where he
served for more than 28 years.

Heed denies the claim, saying he spoke to a federal Senate committee
and suggested more discussion was needed on the decriminalization of marijuana.

Yiu's comments, particularly to the Chinese media, prompted Heed to
have his lawyer send a letter to Yiu to insist that he stop spreading
misinformation.

"Having to put up with these drive-by smears by the NDP has left a
sour taste in my mouth,' said Heed, who is taking his first run as a
politician. "I cannot believe the behaviour they've resorted to."

Yiu, who is against the legalization of marijuana, is a member of the
same party that in 2006 passed its own drug policy resolution.

The party called for "the creation of an explicit cannabis policy
based upon a non-punitive, regulatory approach, including support for
a legal supply of cannabis," according to the NDP's convention
resolution handbook.

"I know drugs is a very, very serious issue in the Chinese community,
and as a person running to represent a riding that has almost half of
the population, I have to reflect their position," said Yiu, in
explaining his drug policy position and the Chinese community's
opposition to legalizing marijuana.

Yiu also criticized Heed for using a photograph of himself in a
police uniform in his campaign literature. Yiu cited a section of the
Police Act that he says shows Heed is using the photograph for
personal gain. "What kind of character, what kind of honesty does
this person hold--it's a crucial issue," said Yiu, a 47-year-old
journalist and small business owner.

Heed, who is no longer a police officer, said he can't believe Yiu
would make an issue out of the photograph. Heed said he used the
photograph because he's proud to have been a police officer for more
than 30 years.

In the early days of the campaign, Yiu criticized Heed for not living
in the riding.

Heed lives in Richmond and Yiu has lived in the riding for 17 years.

He pointed out that he was police commander in southeast Vancouver,
led the VPD's drug squad that took down marijuana growing operations
in the riding and was a member of several committees to combat
Indo-Canadian gang violence.

"I know this riding inside out, I know every laneway, every nook and
cranny," said Heed, who added that he and his wife have been looking
for a house near Fraserview golf course for more than three years.

In the 2005 provincial campaign, Yiu was the NDP candidate in
Burnaby-Willingdon. He didn't live in the riding and defended his run
in Burnaby as "a last minute decision because it was the only riding
available to me."

Jodie Emery, wife of so-called Prince of Pot Marc Emery, is the Green
Party's candidate. Emery advocates the legalization of marijuana to
stop gang violence and the war on drugs.