Clark’s support greatest on Westside in 2013 vote
NDP’s wins at polling stations in downtown Kelowna, Glenmore offer hope to party’s candidate in election this time around
Christy Clark chose what is likely the most photographed view in West Kelowna when she announced her move, for political purposes, to the Okanagan.
Liberal MLA Ben Stewart had given up his seat in the legislature so Clark, who had lost hers in the May 2013 provincial election, could find an easy way back to Victoria.
Stewart’s family owns Quails’ Gate Winery, and it was in the vineyard where Clark announced she would try to win the byelection triggered by Stewart’s resignation.
Visible below the tidy rows of grapevines is the scenic shoreline community of Green Bay, where waterfront homes sell for between $1.2 million and $2.2 million.
Green Bay residents would prove to be particularly enthusiastic about Clark’s arrival in the Okanagan, which she called the “cradle of free enterprise.”
On the night of the byelection, July 10, Clark received 85 per cent of the votes cast by the people of Green Bay — her highest level of victory among any of the 151 voting areas in the riding of Westside-Kelowna (now renamed Kelowna West).
Clark won 63 per cent of the votes overall in the riding, which includes all of West Kelowna and downtown Kelowna. That was five percentage points better than Stewart had achieved in the provincial election.
Clark won 95 of 99 Westside voting areas, her only losses being in parts of downtown Westbank and two mobile home parks.
The NDP fared noticeably better on the east side of the William R. Bennett Bridge, the structure that bears the name of the double-premiered Kelowna family to which Clark sees herself as being the political heir.
The NDP won 14 of the 51 voting areas in downtown Kelowna and the original Glenmore neighbourhoods south of High Road.
It’s that level of support that gives NDP candidate Shelley Cook optimism as she campaigns for the NDP in the riding this election cycle, trying to pull off a long-shot defeat of Clark.
“What I’m hearing from a lot of people when I’m campaigning is great concern about the income disparity we’re seeing developing under the Liberals,” Cook says.
“People may own their home, and that’s a significant asset, but they’re feeling cash poor because their hydro rates, ICBC premiums and MSP payments have gone up dramatically under the Liberals,” says Cook, former executive director of the John Howard Society in Kelowna.
The Greens did not run a candidate against Clark in the byelection or the May 2013 provincial election. Robert Mellalieu, who owns a computer repair business, is representing the party this time.
Mellalieu told an election forum last week he was running in part to try to bring back to politics what he said were enduring Canadian values of “respect and humility.”