Strahl fights for re-election and against cancer

CHILLIWACK, B.C. — After beating his nearest opponent by 15,000 votes in last year's federal election, it's fair to say Conservative Chuck Strahl has no real opposition in his bid to retain the bucolic Fraser Valley seat he's held since 1993.
Unless you count the incurable cancer enveloping his lungs.
Since being diagnosed last August, Strahl has learned to pronounce mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer linked to asbestos exposure that attacks the pleura, the lining that protects the lungs.
Although it was caught at a very early stage when Strahl went to the doctor with a collapsed lung, it's inoperable.
"They also clearly have no idea of how it'll develop,'' says Strahl, his resonant basso voice undiminished by the disease.
Neither radiation nor surgery would be effective. There are chemotherapy options and Strahl, 48, is also investigating experimental gene therapy.
Ironically, Strahl's relative youth _ most mesothelioma patients are elderly _ and vigour could screen him out of the drug trial.
"There's always a possibility I'll be rejected because I'm not sick enough,'' he says with no trace of irony.
But treatment decisions are months away, if not longer. The former logging contractor who spent years inhaling asbestos brake dust from heavy equipment is doing what he's always done, just getting on with things.
"For someone to say `You have cancer, I think you should go home now and pull the sheets over your head,' it's just not in my personality to do that,'' says Strahl. "And my family knows that too. They wouldn't ask me to do that.''
Since first being elected as a Reformer 12 years ago, Strahl earned a reputation as a work horse, rising to become deputy speaker in the Liberal-dominated House.
Strahl's decision to seek a fifth term in Parliament in his Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon riding apparently encountered no opposition from his wife, Deb, nor his four grown children to run in the Jan. 23 election.
"Once we got the initial word (and) the doctors told him to keep living his life, keep running, keep working, keep doing it all, there was no real discussion,'' says son Mark, 27, who works for Tory incumbent Randy Kamp's campaign in adjacent Pitt Meadows-Mission-Maple Ridge.
"You're dealing with someone who ran a marathon in May. Even with the diagnosis he's fitter than I am.''
Aside from regular medical checkups, little has changed. Strahl's wife of 30 years, Deb, accompanied him back to Ottawa more frequently on his weekly commute.
"I'm just tickled pink by that,'' Strahl says.
Strahl is already back jogging but that doesn't stop constituents from asking after him.
"I always tell people I feel fine, and I do,'' he says.
"I'm trying not to play a sympathy vote. I just tell people I'm back to work, working my regular shift. I feel good.''
Jane, who wouldn't give her last name, is having coffee with a friend at a mall in Chilliwack, a city of 62,000 that anchors the riding about 90 kilometres east of Vancouver.
"Why should that stop him?'' she asks. "Good for him for hanging in there.''
Ill or not, Strahl is a formidable opponent. He won with 52 per cent of the vote in 2004, down from 70 per cent in 2000.
The NDP's candidate won't be nominated until Monday and the Liberals so far have no declared candidate.
"It would take a political earthquake this time to unseat Chuck Strahl here locally,'' says NDP riding association president Rollie Keith, who finished second in 2004 with 9,244 votes to Strahl's 24,096.
"So I think when you run against him you try to represent your party as well as you can.''
Strahl's comfortable enough that the Tories will drop him into closer fought races to help out, especially where there are no Conservative incumbents.
"There's no question we've discussed it,'' says Senator Gerry St. Germain, B.C. campaign co-chair. "He's an excellent communicator. I'm sure he's going to be able to help some of the newer candidates in some of these ridings where we're going to have our hands full.''
Cancer has stalked not a few of Strahl's fellow MPs, including departing Tories Dave Chatters and Darrel Stinson, former Reform leader Preston Manning and Liberal Trade Minister Jim Peterson.
Strahl revealed his illness about six weeks after Independent MP Chuck Cadman died of complications from melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.
NDP candidate Penny Priddy, a former B.C. cabinet minister and perceived frontrunner in Cadman's Surrey North riding, has survived breast cancer for 10 years.
The health-care system earned generally good marks from Strahl's involuntary fact-finding trip. But it's reinforced his determination to push for a national cancer strategy when he gets back to Ottawa.
The Commons passed a Tory-sponsored motion last spring that proposed a five-year, $250-million program to improve information sharing among provincial cancer agencies.
"We end up with all these little silos of probably some good work and maybe even some good research but you just don't know about it because there's no co-ordination,'' he says.
The government, however, favoured its own more modest $50-million proposal, says Strahl.
"I don't want to be Mr. Cancer,'' he says. "I don't want to be beating just this one horse. But on the other hand it's something the party supported before I got cancer.''