Kootenay-Columbia riding’s top candidates in dead heat
For the past nine years, residents of the Southern Interior riding of Nelson — an eclectic mix of war resisters, tech professionals, artists, blue-collar workers and environmentally-minded outdoor enthusiasts — have solidly endorsed the NDP.
But federal riding boundary changes have shifted the city into the right-leaning Kootenay- Columbia riding, which since 1997 has elected Reform, Alliance and Conservative candidates.
What happens in this coming election is anyone’s guess, as the race is expected to be a close one between the Tories and NDP.
Conservative incumbent and former Sparwood mayor David Wilks is up against NDP contender Wayne Stetski. A Lead-Now Poll conducted by Environics shows the two in a dead heat, with 37 per cent of decided voters each.
Liberal candidate Don Johnston and the Green’s Bill Green have 15 and 11 per cent of the decided vote respectively.
The four candidates gathered in Nelson Thursday for a key debate.
With substantial Liberal and Green polling numbers in the riding, vote-splitting on the left is top of mind for both Stetski and Wilks. Stetski, a former mayor of Cranbrook, addressed the issue in his opening statement.
“Voters here are very progressive, and that’s going to make a difference in the upcoming election,” he said. “But we have to convince them to vote together.”
Wilks noted that before 1997, the old riding used to swing between the Conservatives and NDP. Wilks, who stands to benefit from vote-splitting, encouraged constituents this time not to limit themselves to voting for one of the two top runners.
“It’s an uphill battle for both the Liberals and the Greens because it’s so well seated in Kootenay-Columbia that it’s either Conservative or NDP,” Wilks said. “That doesn’t take away from the fact that anyone who wants to vote Liberal or Green should.”
The candidates faced tough questions throughout the night from moderator and local radio newscaster Glenn Hicks.
Stetski’s toughest question came near the end of the evening, when Hicks asked why he is running for a New Democratic Party championing fiscal restraint, when he lost his bid for a second term as mayor of Cranbrook in 2014 due to his financial policies.
“You were seen by the majority of voters as too ‘tax and spend’ for Cranbrook,” Hicks said.
“You were too expensive for that community. How do you square that with Mulcair? … Why would the NDP pick someone to run federally who just lost on fiscal responsibility?”
Stetski said he had more votes in 2014 than he did in 2011, and in the end he lost because he was thinking too big.
“I always believed the role of mayor was to care about people with disabilities, with arts, culture, seniors and youth … I really believe we need to properly fund all those things, so taxes were increased by four per cent. I lost to potholes in the end. What the new mayor ran on was fixing potholes.”
Wilks faced tough questions, too. Hicks asked him about his overestimation in a funding announcement for work on national parks in East Kootenay, and about comments he made about being a “backbencher who gets whipped into shape.”
Wilks was forced to apologize July 28 for a funding announcement he made July 16, which was found to be inaccurate after an investigation by a local newspaper. Wilks announced $34 million in federal infrastructure funding for national parks near Revelstoke that had already been spent in 2014.
Wilks told the crowd when he realized things didn’t add up, he immediately contacted the party, and their answer didn’t satisfy him. So he apologized.
“They said the $ 34 million was spent last year and we didn’t announce it, so you can announce it this year,” he explained. “That’s not how it works in my (books).”
The “backbencher” comment was in reference to an omnibus bill, which is a confidence motion, and he agreed with 90 per cent of the bill’s contents, but not the entire thing.
“There were parts I was concerned about. But that’s a confidence motion, period. If you vote against it, the next day you’re an independent because you voted against the party line,” he said.