Ron Cannan picks up nomination papers
COVID critics also among those to pick up papers
Ron Cannan seems to be planning a political comeback.
The former Conservative MP for Kelowna-Lake Country picked up nomination papers at City Hall on Friday signalling his intention to run for a council seat in the Oct. 15 municipal election.
Cannan was on city council from 1996 to 2005 before making the move to federal politics. He won the Conservative party nomination for the seat vacated by the retiring Werner Schmidt in 2005, drawing heavily on support from members of an evangelical church.
Cannan then went on to win the riding for the Tories in the 2006 election and again in 2008 and 2011. He drew more than 50% of all ballots cast in those elections.
In 2015, however, he was defeated by Liberal challenger Stephen Fuhr.
It was the first time since 1968 that a candidate other than one representing a right-of-centre party had won the Kelowna riding.
Cannan did not try to win his seat back in the 2019 federal election; the Conservative challenger to Fuhr was former city councillor Tracy Gray, who easily reclaimed the seat for the Tories.
Cannan was among the most notable of the nine people who picked up nomination packages on Friday for an expected run for city councillor. Others included David Lindsay and Bruce Orydzuk, who have made a name for themselves as critics of both COVID-19 vaccines and public health measures intended to slow the spread of the pandemic. Others who picked up councillor nomination packages: incumbent Loyal Wooldridge, Heather Friesen, Brian Rogers, Greg Dahms, Gord Lovegrove, and Anthony Shepherd.
Glendon Smedley, who finished seventh in an eight-person race for Kelowna mayor in 2014, picked up nomination papers for another mayoral run this fall. So did David Habib.