B/S riding is the oddest
It’s surprising when you think that high-profile Liberals such as Suzanne Anton, Peter Fassbender, Amrik Virk and Naomi Yamamonto are all out of a job and that all-star candidate Steve Darling formerly of Global TV was also a loser on election night. But Linda Larson is still standing. In fact, it wasn’t even close. The incumbent Liberal won her riding with 43 per cent of the vote.
Welcome to the whacky world of B.C. politics and the even whackier riding of Boundary-Similkameen.
This where three candidates were dumped by their parties in 2013 — the incumbent BC Liberal, the NDP and the Conservative. In 2009, the Liberal heavyweights didn’t like the people’s choice so they dumped the candidate and held another nomination meeting.
Boundary-Similkameen had the most signatures on an anti-HST petition in 2010. The riding remained Liberal.
Just this week, one party is asking for a police investigation into the actions of another party’s candidate.
Some pundits thought this was a riding the Liberals could lose.
During her first term, Larson insulted national parks supporters (“crazies”); created a secret committee that was so secretive the public didn’t know who was on it; ignored the Osoyoos Secondary School closure until the final moment; and made an insensitive quip about the Truth and Reconciliation report.
Obviously, she’s popular with her constituents. People love her in Oliver but the riding is huge, stretching all the way to Grand Forks and north to Kaleden. (We don’t have the poll-by-poll breakdown yet.)
Looking at the issues, a professional polling company shows a majority of residents in the South Okanagan Similkameen support a national park, clearly not enough to swing the vote. NDP challenger Colleen Ross was in support but didn’t make it a major spoke in her campaign.
OSS should have been an issue but rural funding was found on June 29 and the school was given a two-year lifeline.
The candidates’ forums were all held prior to the writ being dropped instead of closer to election day.
For the first time since 2005, the B.C. Conservatives were a complete non-factor in any riding, something that helped the Liberals.
The NDP will blame vote splitting with physician Dr. Peter Entwistle entering the race but it’s presumptuous to assume his votes would have gone NDP. Entwistle is popular in Oliver, where Larson has a stranglehold, and he may have also taken votes away from the upstart Green party, which finished last in the riding.
The NDP can blame Ross, who hailed from Grand Forks but was unknown in the South Okanagan, but there’s no evidence to suggest the result would have been any different had Brenda Dorosz of Osoyoos won the nomination.
As Neil Godbout correctly stated in his column, Wednesday, “Interior and Coastal B.C. are much different.”