The provincial election is Oct. 19: find out more before you vote
Three main parties are vying for your vote
The provincial election is less than a month away with significant shifts in the political landscape. BC United leader Kevin Falcon suspended his party's campaign, urging his caucus to support Conservative leader, John Rustad. The Conservatives are positioning themselves as a “big tent” party, aiming to unite centre-right voters. Meanwhile, the NDP is looking to encourage disaffected BC United supporters to vote for them. The Greens feel the same. The election is coming and the race is tightening.
In order to make informed decisions, voters in the CRD need some basic information. We are providing our readers with party platform thumbnails as well as individual candidate mini-profiles by party, riding maps and voting locations throughout the CRD. It’s an important election year.
Get out and vote!
BC political party platform thumbnails
Conservative Party of BC
Healthcare: push for more private healthcare options
Education : government funding to parents choosing private education and homeschooling, remove “political bias and ideology” from classrooms and curriculums
Employment: rehire government employees who lost their jobs because they were not vaccinated against COVID-19, create more private-sector daycare spaces
Environment : eliminate the carbon tax, expand LNG, and continue support for the TMX, Coastal GasLink, and Northern Gateway pipelines, mining, and hydroelectric.
Housing: build more of it
Public Safety : shut down safe injection/vaping sites and move toward more voluntary and mandatory rehabilitation; recriminalize fentanyl, crystal methane, and other “hard” drugs ; greater legal repercussions for environmental (anti-logging) activists and maximum sentences for those who commit serious crimes
New Democratic Party of BC
Healthcare : train and hire more doctors and nurses; continue to expand hospitals, cancer centres, long-term care homes, urgent and primary care centres
Education: seismic upgrading in schools, hire more educators, improve access to learning supports
Environment : increase investment in disaster reduction and resilience infrastructure, and First Nations watershed protections
Housing: encourage new builds; expand the Speculation Tax (designed to ensure foreign owners and those with primarily foreign income contribute fairly to BC’s tax system) and the proposed flipping tax (to come into effect Jan 1, 2025) which apply to income earned (based on net taxable income of 20%) from selling a property if that property has been owned for less than 730 days; restricting Air B&Bs; remove red tape for developers
Public Safety: enforce stricter bail rules, increase efforts to challenge organized crime
BC Green Party
Healthcare: support the ‘Dogwood Model,’ focusing on team-based, longitudinal care to establish a network of holistic Community Health Centres across BC.
Employment: implement a four-day workweek, provide income security through universal basic income, and grow green economy sectors
Education: universal school food program; increased access to mental-health supports; more guidance counselors in schools, create a digital literacy secretariat; ensure all students in middle school and high school receive laptops for school work
Housing: invest in green co-operative housing and increase social housing for First Nations
Environment: increase the resilience of regional ecosystems and protect biodiversity; end all fossil fuel subsidies; and free transport on electric buses
Public Safety: create more safe injection sites
Who is running and where?
The most successful candidates often emerge on the campaign trail itself. Here is a list of candidates running in each of the provincial ridings in the CRD along with their mini-profiles
Ravi Parmar ( NDP) is the current MLA for Langford-Juan de Fuca and the youngest representative in the BC legislature. He is a former chair of the Sooke School Board.
Erin Cassels (Green Party) is a member of the Kebaowek Algonquin Nation and the general manager of the Huntingdon Hotel and Suites and was co-chair of the Hotel Association of Greater Victoria's Sustainability Committee and a director-at-large for the British Columbia Hotel Association
Mike Harris (Conservatives) is a journeyman carpenter and small business owner and has served as regional director with the Conservative Party of BC for two years
Darlene Rotchford (NDP) is a councilor in Esquimalt and is a past-president of the Victoria Labour Council
Camille Currie (Green Party) is a small business owner and founder of B.C. Health Care Matters to address the family doctor crisis
John Wilson (Conservatives) is the president and CEO of The Wilson Group of ground transportation companies and past chair of the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce
David Evans (Green Party) is a local business owner and community advocate
Dana Lajeunesse (NDP) is a mechanical engineering technologist twice elected to Sooke council
Marina Sapozhnikov (Conservatives) has served as a family doctor in Cobble Hill and as a locum in remote and underserved communities in BC
Diana Gibson (NDP) led Greater Victoria’s Community Social Planning Council and co-founded the Firelight Group, Canada’s largest Indigenous-owned consulting firm
Lisa Gunderson (Green Party) Deputy leader, educator equity consultant, and founder of One Love Consulting focusing on racialized youth
Stephen Andrew (Conservatives) is a former municipal councilor, television journalist, legislative reporter, and radio talk show host
Saanich North and the Gulf Islands
Rob Botterell (Green Party) worked for the BC finance ministry led the team that developed BC’s Freedom of Information law; and represented First Nations governments in private law for 25 years
David Busch (Conservatives) is a Saanich lawyer who has represented clients from Small Claims to the Court of Appeal in BC and Alberta; taught law at UVic
Sarah Riddell (NDP) is a healthcare leader and former Central Saanich councillor. Riddell was director of the Medical Services Plan Payment Schedule at the Ministry of Health.
*Lana Popham (NDP) has been the MLA for Saanich South since 2009; was the agriculture minister and was tourism minister at the outset of the election
Adam Kubel (Conservatives) is an experienced project manager formerly in construction supporting oil and gas and is co-owner of You Floral, a multinational floral wholesale company
Ned Taylor (Green Party) was the youngest-ever elected to the Saanich Council and CRD Director and has served in these roles for over four years
*Grace Lore (NDP) has been the MLA for Victoria-Beacon Hill since 2020 and is the minister of children and family development. She previously served as the minister of state for child care and parliamentary secretary for gender equity
Sonia Furstenau (Green Party) has served as the MLA for Cowichan Valley since 2017 and was the lead spokesperson for seven different government files, including environmental legislation childcare, and early childhood education
Tim Thielmann (Conservatives) is legally blind and is a lawyer dedicated to serving First Nations across BC. He is a former director of the Sierra Club and played a key role in the negotiation of historic LNG pipeline agreements
Nina Krieger (NDP) is a community leader dedicated to advancing education and is the executive director of Western Canada’s leading Holocaust museum
Christina Winter (Green Party) has a long background in customer and client services and has worked as a constituency assistant
Tim Taylor (Conservatives) was a residential and commercial realtor and the founding member and co-chair of the Homeless Action Team for the CRD
*incumbents
Where are you voting?
Voters need to know where to drop their ballots on election day. Click on the list of final voting day voting places to discover where you will be dropping yours on Oct 19
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