Green leadership candidate cancels Okanagan swing
B.C. Green MLA Sonia Furstenau’s plans to bring her leadership campaign to the Okanagan have succumbed to the coronavirus.
Furstenau was going to be in Peachland and Kelowna today and Vernon on Sunday, but in a news release Wednesday afternoon, the MLA for Cowichan Valley said she will follow a party directive to cancel leadership campaign events due to concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic:
“While I was greatly looking forward to visiting Peachland, Kelowna, Nelson, Ymir, Vernon and Kamloops over the course of the next week, the situation with COVID-19 is rapidly changing and we have a responsibility as political leaders to exercise the best practices recommended by experts.
“Experts are increasingly calling for Canadians to take action to reduce and slow the transmission of COVID19 through social distancing. The health and safety of
British
Columbians must be our first priority,” she said.
“My campaign staff is cancelling all our events and will continue to follow the advice of the party and of experts.
“We are revising our campaign plan to hold online events, and are organizing an online townhall to be announced as soon as possible.
“I extend my sincere apologies to the communities that I have been unable to visit, and my thanks to community organizers and my campaign team, who have been working hard to prepare for this trip.
“If the advice from the party and experts changes prior to the conclusion of the leadership campaign, we will do everything in our power to reschedule events.”
Furstenau has worked as a high school teacher and came to public prominence as the leader of a successful campaign against the discharge of soil from a mine site into an area near Shawnigan Lake on Vancouver Island.
Elected as a Green MLA in 2017, Furstenau’s website says her legislative accomplishments since then include advocating for reforms to the child welfare system, environmental and education legislation, and opposing “tax breaks to the fossil fuel industry.”