The lattes, whole grains and smiling staff burbling and bustling at Books and Company's Cafe Voltaire Saturday perhaps provided some comfort to Betty Bekkering as she recalled one of the more bruising political campaigns in recent Prince George memory.
It was 2008 and Bekkering was the federal NDP candidate for Prince George-Peace River seeking to upset longtime Reform and Tory MP Jay Hill.
The last time the riding had not gone to some form of right-wing party was 1968 and 2008 would prove no different, with Bekkering losing to Hill by some 16,000-odd votes for the soon-to-be Conservative Government House leader's sixth straight victory at the ballot box.
In 2011, Bekkering figured her replacement, former NDP MLA Lois Boone would mount a sterner challenge to Hill's replacement, Fort St. John teacher Bob Zimmer, but to no avail - Zimmer beat by Boone a 14,066-vote margin.
"That whole corridor is staunch Conservative," said Bekkering, who is also a former school board trustee. "That old school of a lot of farmers, ranchers, oil... they were just staunch Conservatives, they were just not even going to listen."
Bekkering, however, sensed something different in the air Saturday - and it wasn't just the scents of steamed milk and sweet caramel. The NDP's shocking win in the Alberta provincial election; recent strong polling numbers for the federal party and its leader Thomas Mulcair; and a rookie candidate replacing longtime MP Dick Harris in the riding of Cariboo-Prince George have swirled together to create one unlikely concoction: a battle for the federal NDP's nomination in this region.
She figures the last time there was such a nomination race was when Brian Gardiner would go on to capture the then riding of Prince George-Bulkley Valley for the NDP in the late 1980s. Hoping to follow in Gardiner's footsteps are three candidates: Williams Lake's Laura Zimmerman; former Prince George city councillor Debora Munoz; and Prince George small businessman Trent Derrick.
"I love the momentum the NDP have," said Bekkering, who was attending a meet and greet at Books and Company put on by Zimmerman. "A couple of people have stopped here and spoken with Laura and they're staunch sort of Conservative... there just seems to be this momentum to switch, that there needs to be change. Maybe, at least, Cariboo-Prince George is winnable for the NDP."
The trio is also racing against what's been a reality in Prince George's two ridings, Cariboo-Prince George and Prince George-Peace River, for decades. In 2011, the political number-crunching site ThreeHundredEight.com dubbed the two seats "fortress" ridings for the Conservatives, impregnable Tory fortifications so strong secure did not adequately describe them.
But that same site, ThreeHundredEight.com, declared May as one of only three instances since Bekkering ran in 2008 where voting intentions changed for a political party so drastically. And they changed for the NDP.
It's latest projections put the three major parties in an near statistical dead-heat, with the Conservatives at 30.1 per cent, the NDP at 29.1 per cent and the Liberals at 28 per cent - the NDP's highest position since January 2013. It's a push driven in part by B.C., where the NDP led all parties with 31.9 per cent of the popular vote in May, trailed by the Tories at 27.9 per cent, a 7.2 point increase that was their best since March 2013 and the first time they've been in first in B.C. since last fall.
And there is last month's Alberta provincial election, in which the NDP's Rachel Notley defeated Conservative premier and former Harper ally Jim Prentice to end 44 years of Tory rule.
For Derrick, a 40-year-old small businessman and a two-time hopeful for city council in 2008 and 2014, the Alberta win has injected a new element into the Cariboo-Prince George race: hope.
"Once you get the people believing that you can win, they'll come out and support," said Derrick. "I think the Alberta election has spurred on the NDP and has given them hope that if they can win in Alberta, which is just as strong (Tory) territory and no one thought they would win there, that there is a chance here."
An important aspect of that Alberta win and that hope, added Derrick, was the NDP's ability to appeal to the business community, which has been traditionally wary of the party.
"[Notley's win] has given the NDP a legitimate shot throughout the area, that they are able to win over the business vote because that's one of the things they were able to do in Alberta," said Derrick. "They were able to prove they were business-friendly as well."
When Bekkering was nominated for the NDP in 2008, she was acclaimed and she said she believes the party is struggling to find someone to carry an orange banner in Prince George-Peace River for this October's federal election.
But in Cariboo-Prince George it may not be such a done deal. Local pundits proclaimed Todd Doherty to be the next MP for the riding after he emerged last November as the winner of a brutal fight for the Tory nomination against, among others, former Prince George mayor Shari Green and businessman T.J. Grewal. But the Tory nominee for the region is still a first-time candidate for the Conservatives, replacing the seven-time winner Harris.
Doherty, for his part, "welcomed' competition.
"(Voters) want a leader (like Stephen Harper) who has focused on their priorities like bringing the tax burden to its lowest point in over 50 years, benefiting every Canadian family with children, and making retirement more affordable for hard-working seniors," said Doherty.
Doherty hewed closely to the party line and likely remains the favourite. But Zimmerman, a longtime NDP volunteer from Saskatchewan who remembers listening to party icon Tommy Douglas as young girl, believes, like Derrick, the prime minister and his party will be undone by controversial legislation like Bill C-51, which has been widely criticized for giving security agencies expanded powers with little oversight and Bill C-24, which the Globe and Mail recently described as having an "ugly, xenophobic side" that gives the government the ability to strip Canadians of their citizenship.
"Our democracy is at a crucial point," said Zimmerman. "Good, complacent Canadians that we are, we've allowed this to happen. We have two-tier health care, two-tier education and now we have two-tier citizenship.
"Mr. Harper promised to change Canada; well, he's changed it, we don't have democracy any more."
When it comes to taking Cariboo-Prince George, Zimmerman said, looking back on 2011, much of the Tories' support is concentrated in Vanderhoof and Prince George. Many of the rest of the polls, she said, went to NDP hopeful Jon Van Barneveld.
"We already know (NDP voters) are there," she said. "Now I cannot believe even the Conservative people in this constituency agree with the policies and the bills that Mr. Harper has cast. Mr. Harper has brought this country so far right, it's not even Conservative."
Bekkering said the constituency is still waiting on the federal party to see when the nomination meeting will be held, with the possibility it may be set for early July.
