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Liberals win Vancouver Granville after one of the tightest races in the country

Taleeb Noormohamed has been declared the winner in the Vancouver Granville riding, after an extremely tight race.  (Nic Amaya/CBC News - image credit)
Taleeb Noormohamed has been declared the winner in the Vancouver Granville riding, after an extremely tight race. (Nic Amaya/CBC News - image credit)

After one of the tightest races in the country, Taleeb Noormohamed has won the seat for the Liberal Party in the Vancouver Granville riding.

Projections for the riding had the NDP, Liberal and Conservative candidates in a near three-way tie over the past two weeks. As polls were counted, Noormohamed and NDP candidate Anjali Appadurai were at times just one or two votes apart.

Thirteen ridings in Canada were considered too close to call on election night, as Election Canada continued ballot counts through Tuesday and Wednesday.

Noormohamed was elected with 17,055 votes. Appadurai received 16,619, and Conservative candidate Kailin Che finished with 13,290.

The riding's last MP was Jody Wilson-Raybould, who won the seat as a Liberal in 2015 but was expelled from the Liberal caucus in the House of Commons in 2018 and stripped of the Liberal Party nomination for the 2019 election, following the SNC Lavalin affair. She won the seat for Vancouver Granville in 2019 as an Independent, beating Noormohamed, who took over as Liberal candidate for the riding in 2018.

She announced she would not be seeking re-election in July of this year.

Gabe Garfinkel, the B.C. campaign co-chair of the Liberal Party of Canada, said the win was part of the strong mandate British Columbians had given to Justin Trudeau and the Liberals.

"Our entire team of Liberal MPs from the west coast will work to ensure that B.C. voices are at the heart of our work to build a better future for all Canadians," Garfinkel said in a statement.

Noormohamed served as a senior official in the federal government from 2002 to 2007. He then went on to work as an advisor to Bob Rae.

He was also part of the organizing committee for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

He eventually returned to work in the tech sector, and he is currently the Chief Executive Officer for online boutique marketplace Jane.

Noormohamed was criticized during the campaign for his real estate ventures — he has flipped more than 20 properties after less than a year of ownership since 2005, which has raised questions about his commitment to the Liberal platform on housing.

According to B.C. assessment records, Noormohamed has sold 41 properties since 2005, making $4.9 million in the process.

The Liberal Party platform on housing proposes an "anti-flipping tax" on residential properties, requiring that such properties be held for at least a year. That would mean 21 properties Noormohamed sold would have been subject to the proposed tax.