B.C. Conservative and NDP leaders rally election support in Vernon

As provincial campaigns ramped up, the B.C. Conservative and NDP leaders made separate stops in Vernon over the weekend to rally support and hear from constituents. B.C. Conservative Leader Lorne Doerkson attended a campaign event at Okanagan Spirits Craft Distillery on Friday, Oct. 2. B.C. NDP Leader David Eby's bus arrived on 30th Avenue Saturday for an event featuring several of his party's Okanagan candidates. Both leaders are polling as frontrunners, and the race appears tight.

More than 100 people filled the distillery for Doerkson's two-hour meet and greet, mingling with him and Vernon-Lumby Conservative candidate Kevin Acton. The event was relaxed and conversational compared with the next evening's pep rally featuring Eby and local NDP candidate Harwinder Sandhu. Nearby candidates Binny Boparai (Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream), Gloria Morgan (Salmon Arm-Shuswap), Kory Clark (Kamloops-North Thompson) and Loyal Woolridge (Kelowna Centre) also attended. About 80 supporters were at Eby's event.

Two days earlier, Eby announced in Surrey a campaign promise to suspend the provincial motor fuel tax by 10 cents a litre. He also said he would introduce price controls to “cap excess industry margins” and enforce “strict pricing rules.” On Saturday, he described the pledge as a commitment to regulate oil and gas companies so they would not take advantage of the moment to gouge people at the pump when they could least afford it. Eby also discussed the NDP's other price-control promise: a “price guard” for groceries. He asked supporters whether they knew one key grocery initiative was to legalize the ability of another operator to open a competing grocery store near an existing one. Eby said a new store lowers people's bills by an average of $700 a year simply by opening, and said the NDP would make such stores legal. The NDP event did not take media questions. Doerkson gave a brief interview to The Morning Star at the Conservative meet and greet.

Doerkson had been in the area after announcing the Conservatives' wildfire action plan in Summerland that morning. He described it as a $500-million investment in an innovation plan and the purchase of a fleet of water bombers. Asked about local concerns ahead of the election, he named health care, jobs and the economy as focal points for many residents, adding that the same concerns seemed to be present almost everywhere.

Doerkson said he and other British Columbians were frustrated by the timing of the Oct. 24 snap election, which comes a week after local government elections and was called amid turbulent times for the Official Opposition Conservatives. He said Eby already had a majority government and he was not sure what Eby's plan was, speculating that it had to do with some kind of opportunity. Doerkson said his party was focused on Oct. 24 and on winning and changing government.

The provincial election is ostensibly a referendum on the response to tariffs. Eby has said he called it because he needed a stronger mandate to respond to U.S. President Donald Trump's aggressive tariff strategy. At Saturday evening's event, Eby acknowledged that Okanagan residents were struggling with grocery and gas prices and the overall cost of living while worrying about their jobs. He blamed the effects on Trump's “tariff war.” Speaking at the distillery Friday, Doerkson cited his party's earlier promise to remove the 10 per cent provincial sales tax (PST) from Canadian alcohol as one way to counter U.S. tariffs. Removing interprovincial trade barriers would also be a focus, he said.

Both leaders promoted their candidates in the Vernon-Lumby riding. Eby said people had claimed the NDP could not win the seat, but Sandhu had done so twice. He called her a local representative who cared about community priorities and put them first. Doerkson said Acton had already started advocating for the area before the election. He called Acton a strong representative in civic politics, said the Conservatives were very happy to have him as their candidate and added, “I'm proud to work with him.” Acton is also running to retain his seat as Lumby's mayor. He has said he will vacate it if he wins both elections and will pay for a municipal by-election.