MLA Daniel Jarvis appears to be having the last laugh as the jockeying heats up to replace him in North Vancouver-Seymour. At least two potential candidates say they have sent letters of intent to the BC Liberals announcing their interest in the riding should Jarvis step down. Both school trustee Jane Thornthwaite and community activist Wayne Hunter are doing their best to be gracious as Jarvis continues his work as MLA and refuses to bow to any pressures to leave the post he has held since 1991.

So why then are Hunter and Thornthwaite pressing the issue when the provincial election is still over nine months away?

Quite simply it’s because the civic election campaign is about to kick off. For Thornthwaite that means it’s decision time – time to decide what political route she’s going to take – given that Jarvis is still, the last time we checked, the sitting MLA for the riding. Her dilemma is that she has until October 10 to file her nomination papers for her re-election to the School Board, and if she runs and wins (which is extremely likely as she topped the trustee polls in 2005) she will have a tough time convincing voters to pay for an expensive byelection should Jarvis hold off his possible retirement until January or February 2009.

The ironic thing here is that Thornthwaite appears to be Jarvis’ heir apparent. It turns out Jarvis is telling anyone who will listen that he is a fan of Thornthwaite and that she would make a great MLA. There are also those who say Jarvis supports her because she is a federal Liberal – and that he has no intention of letting a “right wing reform candidate” take the riding after he’s gone. If this were true one might think that Jarvis would make his departure announcement sooner than later so that Thornthwaite does not have to go through even the prospect of triggering a messy school trustee early term byelection.

So who is the chosen one? Several months ago there was talk that the BC Liberals had their eyes on vaulting former CBC anchor Kevin Evans into North Van-Seymour. The polling site iRankd.com at one time listed former Canuck Trevor Linden as a possible candidate (Note: I’m currently ranked number 10 on this list). With the BC Liberals apparently in no hurry to trigger a nomination fight could it be that they are still waiting for their dream candidate to emerge.

For his part, Wayne Hunter is biding his time. Both he and Thornthwaite appear to be honouring Jarvis’s status as the MLA (not good form to go after a sitting MLA). But Hunter bristles at the speculation that a conservative pedigree would not make for a suitable MLA, particularly with the BC Liberals. Hunter says his approach has always been to bring a broad spectrum of political support to his initiatives and work with people of all political stripes – an approach he says that he outlined in his letter of intent sent to BC Liberal Party brass.

Three things will happen over the next month in NV-Seymour:

Jane Thornthwaite will decide her political and career futures: Thornthwaite says that if she is going to remain as a school trustee at $17,000 per year she’s going to have to go out and get another job to support her and her family;

Wayne Hunter is going to quietly do whatever he can to sign up new members because, as we all know in the candidate selection process, it’s all about signing up supporters (500 new members could be enough to tip the scales); and Daniel Jarvis is going on holidays – Italy for a month to be exact – just as it was starting to get interesting.