Winning the federal seat for the NDP in Victoria is the culmination of a dream for Murray Rankin, one he's had since he was 17 and will be fully realized if his party becomes government.
Rankin, 62, a Harvard-educated environmental and aboriginal-rights lawyer and adjunct professor at the University of Victoria, celebrated his win at the Fairmont Empress Monday night.
The bike-riding, vegetarian, dyed-in-the-wool social democrat, who has fought on behalf of the environment, First Nations and those who suffer discrimination, says he's always felt "completely at home with the NDP."
While his win Monday night was a dream come true, he admits if the NDP, which now forms the official Opposition, can stop Enbridge's proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, and the party can win the 2015 election, that would be the icing on the cake.
The biggest motivating factor for Rankin in jumping into the byelection race was to stop Enbridge's proposed pipeline from Alberta to Kitimat. "I want to go to Ottawa because I know there we can defeat it," he said.
Since last year, Rankin has been preoccupied with advising B.C. NDP leader Adrian Dix on what the province could do in the face of federal approval for an interprovincial pipeline. Rankin has led a volunteer legal-advice team on the issue, arguing the province should give the required 30 days' notice, withdraw from the federal government's joint-review panel process and set up a "made-in-B.C." environmental assessment that, among other things, recognizes First Nations' interests.
Called to the bar in B.C. in 1976, Rankin went to the University of Victoria the next year to teach environmental law. Since 2004, he has been an adjunct law professor.
In 1990, Rankin joined his friend Joe Arvay to become managing partner for the law firm Arvay Finlay, which successfully fought for same-sex marriage rights and took on the Surrey school district when it attempted to ban books with same-sex themes.
Born in Belleville, Ont., Rankin is married to Linda Hannah, whom he met in a Fernwood basement during a founding board meeting for the Western Canada Wilderness Committee. The couple has two grown children - Benjamin, 25, and Mark, 22.
Rankin is bilingual and has no elected experience, but was in the backroom of several campaigns over the years, including those of Saanich-South MLA Andrew Petter and Victoria-Beacon Hill MLA Carole James.He said he always wanted to be a politician at some point in his life.
