BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association
Your Data Your Rights
The provincial election is less than a month away with significant shifts in the political landscape. BC United leader Kevin Falcon suspended his party’s campaign, urging his caucus to support Conservative leader, John Rustad. The Conservatives are positioning themselves as a “big tent” party, aiming to unite centre-right voters. Meanwhile, the NDP is looking to encourage disaffected BC United supporters to vote for them. The Greens feel the same. The election is coming and the race is tightening.
In order to make informed decisions, voters in the CRD need some basic information. We are providing our readers with party platform thumbnails as well as individual candidate mini-profiles by party, riding maps and voting locations throughout the CRD. It’s an important election year.
Get out and vote!
BC political party platform thumbnails
Conservative Party of BC
Healthcare: push for more private healthcare optionsEducation: government funding to parents choosing private education and homeschooling, remove “political bias and ideology” from classrooms and curriculumsEmployment: rehire government employees who lost their jobs because they were not vaccinated against COVID-19, create more private-sector daycare spacesEnvironment: eliminate the carbon tax, expand LNG, and continue support for the TMX, Coastal GasLink, and Northern Gateway pipelines, mining, and hydroelectric.Housing: build more of itPublic Safety: shut down safe injection/vaping sites and move toward more voluntary and mandatory rehabilitation; recriminalize fentanyl, crystal methane, and other “hard” drugs; greater legal repercussions for environmental (anti-logging) activists and maximum sentences for those who commit serious crimes
New Democratic Party of BC
Healthcare: train and hire more doctors and nurses; continue to expand hospitals, cancer centres, long-term care homes, urgent and primary care centresEducation: seismic upgrading in schools, hire more educators, improve access to learning supportsEnvironment: increase investment in disaster reduction and resilience infrastructure, and First Nations watershed protectionsHousing: encourage new builds; expand the Speculation Tax (designed to ensure foreign owners and those with primarily foreign income contribute fairly to BC’s tax system) and the proposed flipping tax (to come into effect Jan 1, 2025) which apply to income earned (based on net taxable income of 20%) from selling a property if that property has been owned for less than 730 days; restricting Air B&Bs; remove red tape for developersPublic Safety: enforce stricter bail rules, increase efforts to challenge organized crime
BC Green Party
Healthcare: support the ‘Dogwood Model,’ focusing on team-based, longitudinal care to establish a network of holistic Community Health Centres across BC.Employment: implement a four-day workweek, provide income security through universal basic income, and grow green economy sectorsEducation: universal school food program; increased access to mental-health supports; more guidance counselors in schools, create a digital literacy secretariat; ensure all students in middle school and high school receive laptops for school work Housing: invest in green co-operative housing and increase social housing for First NationsEnvironment: increase the resilience of regional ecosystems and protect biodiversity; end all fossil fuel subsidies; and free transport on electric busesPublic Safety: create more safe injection sites
Who is running and where?
The most successful candidates often emerge on the campaign trail itself. Here is a list of candidates running in each of the provincial ridings in the CRD along with their mini-profiles.
Ravi Parmar NDP is the current MLA for Langford-Juan de Fuca and the youngest representative in the BC legislature. He is a former chair of the Sooke School Board.Erin Cassels Green Party is a member of the Kebaowek Algonquin Nation and the general manager of the Huntingdon Hotel and Suites and was co-chair of the Hotel Association of Greater Victoria’s Sustainability Committee and a director-at-large for the British Columbia Hotel AssociationMike Harris Conservatives is a journeyman carpenter and small business owner and has served as regional director with the Conservative Party of BC for two years.
Darlene Rotchford NDP is a councilor in Esquimalt and is a past-president of the Victoria Labour CouncilCamille Currie Green Party is a small business owner and founder of B.C. Health Care Matters to address the family doctor crisis John Wilson Conservatives is the president and CEO of The Wilson Group of ground transportation companies and past chair of the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce.
David Evans Green Party is a local business owner and community advocate Dana Lajeunesse NDP is a mechanical engineering technologist twice elected to Sooke councilMarina Sapozhnikov Conservatives has served as a family doctor in Cobble Hill and as a locum in remote and underserved communities in BCOak Bay-Gordon Head Diana Gibson NDP led Greater Victoria’s Community Social Planning Council and co-founded the Firelight Group, Canada’s largest Indigenous-owned consulting firmLisa Gunderson Green Party Deputy leader, educator equity consultant, and founder of One Love Consulting focusing on racialized youthStephen Andrew Conservatives is a former municipal councilor, television journalist, legislative reporter, and radio talk show host
Saanich North and the Gulf Islands
Rob Botterell Green Party worked for the BC finance ministry led the team that developed BC’s Freedom of Information law; and represented First Nations governments in private law for 25 yearsDavid Busch Conservatives is a Saanich lawyer who has represented clients from Small Claims to the Court of Appeal in BC and Alberta; taught law at UVic
Sarah Ridell NDP is a councilor for the District of Central Saanich and has served as director of the Medical Services Plan payment schedule at the ministry of health.
*Lana Popham NDP has been the MLA for Saanich South since 2009; was the agriculture minister and was tourism minister at the outset of the election Adam Kubel Conservatives is an experienced project manager formerly in construction supporting oil and gas and is co-owner of You Floral, a multinational floral wholesale companyNed Taylor Green Party was the youngest-ever elected to Saanich Councillor and CRD Director and has served in these roles for over four yearsVictoria-Beacon Hill *Grace Lore NDP has been the MLA for Victoria-Beacon Hill since 2020 and is the minister of children and family development. She previously served as the minister of state for child care and parliamentary secretary for gender equitySonia Furstenau Green Party has served as the MLA for Cowichan Valley since 2017 and was the lead spokesperson for seven different government files, including environmental legislation childcare, and early childhood educationTim Thielmann Conservatives is legally blind and is a lawyer dedicated to serving First Nations across BC. He is a former director of the Sierra Club and played a key role in the negotiation of historic LNG pipeline agreements
Nina Krieger NDP is a community leader dedicated to advancing education and is the executive director of Western Canada’s leading Holocaust museumChristina Winter Green Party has a long background in customer and client services and has worked as a constituency assistantTim Taylor Conservatives was a residential and commercial realtor and the founding member and co-chair of the Homeless Action Team for the CRD
*incumbents
Where are you voting?
Voters need to know where to drop their ballots on election day. Click on the list of final voting day voting places to discover where you will be dropping yours on Oct 19.
The Local Journalism Initiative (LJI) is a federally funded program to add coverage in under-covered areas or on under-covered issues. This content is created and submitted by participating publishers and is not edited. Access can also be gained by registering and logging in at: https://lji-ijl.ca.
You can support trusted and verified news content like this.
FIPA’s news monitor subscribers, donors and funders help make these available to everyone rather than behind a paywall. We appreciate every contribution because it makes a difference.
If you found this article interesting and useful, please consider contributing here.
Learn more about our News Monitoring here.
Tags