Valley shies from Conservative flag

A bulwark for the BC Conservatives has become a black hole.

Despite winning more votes in the Central Okanagan than in any other part of the province in the 2017 provincial election, the party wasn’t able to get anyone to carry its colours this time around.

“I am disappointed we couldn’t get candidates in the three Kelowna ridings,” Conservative Leader Trevor Bolin said Monday. “I know our party’s message resonates particularly well in Kelowna and the Okanagan.

“We did have two or three people who were interested in becoming candidates, but they decided in the end not to run, either for personal reasons or, in one case, because their family just had a new baby,” Bolin said.

“That’s one of the many things wrong with the NDP calling this snap election,” Bolin said. “There just hasn’t been time for people to consider putting their names forward as candidates.”

In recent elections when they’ve presented local candidates, the BC Conservatives averaged 10.4 per cent of all ballots cast in the Kelowna-area ridings, far above the one-half of one per cent the party earned provincewide in the 2017 vote.

There is no connection between the B.C. Conservatives and the Conservative Party of Canada. In B.C., the provincial Liberal party is viewed as a coalition of federal Conservatives and federal Liberals, who work together to try prevent an NDP victory.

While the B.C. Conservatives are a fringe outfit, with little funding and only 19 candidates heading into the Oct. 24 election, they can play a role in drawing votes that might otherwise go to the provincial Liberals.

In 2017, Conservative candidate Leah McCulloch won 2,061 votes in Courtney-Comox, which was won by the NDP by 190 votes. The Liberals ended that election with 43 seats, one short of a majority, and a coalition of the NDP and Greens eventually assumed power.

But Bolin said he doesn’t believe the BC Conservatives draw votes from the Liberals.

“I hear this all the time,” he said. “But we can’t take a single vote from the Liberals. They can only lose votes.

“The Liberals introduced the carbon tax, and the NDP raised it. Neither party has done any meaningful reform to ICBC,” Bolin said. “If there’s vote-splitting, it’s between the Liberals and the NDP. We have a completely different platform.”

There are two BC Conservative candidates in the Okanagan, Kyle Delfing in Vernon-Monashee and Darryl Seres in Boundary-Similkameen.

Special toThe Daily Courier BC NDP candidate Spring Hawes, left, speaks with NDP leader John Horgan on Saturday in Vernon. Due to weather, what was intended to be a direct flight to Revelstoke turned into a flight to Kelowna followed by a drive to Revelstoke for Horgan. Hawes, candidate for Kelowna West, was able to change her Saturday plans last minute to meet Horgan in Vernon, where he chatted with voters at Ratio Coffee. “I was glad to meet with Premier Horgan briefly to talk about the work the government has done in B.C.,” said Hawes in a news release. “I told him that British Columbia has benefited greatly from his leadership and that the Okanagan is looking forward to the Oct. 24 election.”