The Liberal Party of Canada officially declared Sara Badiei its candidate for the riding of Port Moody-Coquitlam on Saturday, March 9, kicking off her campaign a full seven months before the federal election on Oct. 21.
Badiei comes from an engineering background, having started her career at BC Hydro working on grid-scale transmission planning.
She then spent a couple of years with a power company in California before jumping into a string of humanitarian positions — in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Philippines with Doctors Without Borders; in Afghanistan working to treat municipal water with the Red Cross; and in Jerusalem as an energy specialist with the World Bank.
Several Liberal MPs were on hand at Port Moody’s Old Orchard Hall to welcome Badiei’s nomination, including Coquitlam-Port Coquitlam MP Ron McKinnon, Burnaby North-Seymour MP Terry Beech, and Harjit Sajjan, Minister of National Defence and MP for Vancouver South.
While the Conservative Party has yet to choose its candidate for the Port Moody-Coquitlam race, on Friday, Coquitlam City Coun. Bonita Zarrillo launched her bid to represent the NDP in this year’s election.
Zarrillo will be competing against Sean Lee, who currently works as communications director of the electoral district’s executive. Both have less than three weeks to prepare for the NDP nomination scheduled on March 31.
The federal riding of Port Moody–Coquitlam was left wide open when NDP MP Fin Donnelly — who has held the seat for nearly a decade — announced in December he would not be running for re-election.
—With files from Diane Strandberg
