The first (only?) set of local provincial election debates is this week and starts tonight

And the candidate list is finalized

OK, so the election season is officially here — the campaign kicked off last weekend but the candidate lists were finalized this past one.

This week, there will be three all-candidate forums hosted by the University of Northern BC Energy Transition Group, the Prince George Electric Vehicle Association, and the University of Northern BC Sustainability Team focused on environment and energy issues.

They are being hosted at UNBC’s Canfor Theatre, livestreamed on Zoom, and posted to YouTube.

The nights are:

• Tuesday October 1 for the Prince George-Valemount riding

• Wednesday October 2 for Prince George-Mackenzie riding

• Thursday October 3 for Prince George-North Cariboo riding

The ridings (and which one you are in)

For the first time in in 15 years, Prince George is going to be divided up into three ridings again. I wrote a bit about this in a previous newsletter:

A fun quirk of being the biggest city by a large degree for many hundreds of kilometers in all directions is Prince George is always getting chopped up into different electoral ridings. The reason for this is simple: We have a system of democracy that’s based on the principal of every vote being equal, so there’s an effort made to make every individual riding having roughly the same number of people in it (the idea being you don’t want some MPs/MLAs representing thousands of people while other only represent dozens). There are adjustments made for geography, particularly as you get further and further north, but compared to say, the United States, Canada is more interested in representing people than land at the ballot box.

The rest of the post shares the full details behind why each of the current ridings was selected, you can read it if you like.

Prince George has been chopped up many different ways throughout history:

• In 1979 it was Prince George North and Prince George South.

• From 1991 until 2009, Prince George North remained (the “north” part being pretty much Bear Lake and Mackenzie) while, rather than go south to the Cariboo, there was Prince George-Omineca, which went west to include Vanderhoof and area, and Prince George-Mount Robson which headed east into the Robson Valley.

• Then in 2009 the “Prince George” part was removed from the Omineca riding and the Nechako Lakes riding, spreading further west, was created. The other two ridings were adjusted to absorb the portion of the city kicked out of Omineca and renamed Prince George-Mackenzie and Prince George-Valemount, respectively.

While those ridings still exist, part of Prince George is being stretched south again with the addition of the Prince George-North Cariboo riding. The impact of this is that part of College Heights, which used to be in the Prince George -Mount Robson riding, is being absorbed into this new riding where the majority of the population lives in the Cariboo region— notably Quesnel and Wells. While Prince George-Mackenzie and Prince George-Valemount are likely to have candidates focus on the “Prince George” part of the riding in order to garner the most votes, it’s the “Cariboo” part of this new Prince George- North Cariboo riding that has more electoral power than the College Heights bit (which isn’t to say College Height has nothing, just that the region of the city south of Domano and east of the highway isn’t as vote-rich as the entirety of Quesnel) — see map below.

Anyways, if you aren’t sure which riding you are in you can get maps here or you can type your address into this website and get your answer.

My shortform version is:

• The Hart, Heritage,University Heights and Northwest College Heights = Prince George-Mackenzie,

• Southeast College Heights = Cariboo North

• The rest is Prince George-Valemount.

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The candidates

The finalized candidates list is here.

For the three Prince George ridings, they are:

Prince George-Mackenzie

• Kiel Giddens, Conservative Party

• Shar McCrory, BC NDP

• James Steidle, BC Green Party

• Rachael Weber

Kiel Giddens has not run for office before. He was going to be the B.C. United candidate for this riding, replacing Mike Morris who has held the seat since 2013 with what was then the B.C. Liberals, but then the B.C. Liberals changed their name to B.C. United, dropped deep in the polls and withdrew from the election altogether. Giedens was one of the B.C. United candidates invited to run for the B.C. Conservatives, which meant the already-nominated candidate for that riding, Rachael Weber, was dropped. Now she’s running as an independent with signs saying she is the “TRUE Conservative” option for the north.

Weber is also a school board trustee and has attracted some controversy for her past Facebook posts (such as these ones and these ones). This is interesting because 1. Giddens used to be part of the B.C. United Party which dug up some of these posts to paint the B.C. Conservatives, which he is now a part of, as unready to govern and 2. The NDP candidate, Shar McCrory, is also a school board trustee and ran in a by-election campaign that was in some ways a refutation of Weber’s tenure as school board chair, particularly when it came to support for SOGI educational materials. To my knowledge, she has not ran for public office previously.

Rounding out the campaign in this riding is James Steidle who came in 13th place in the 2022 municipal election and is known locally for his advocacy work with Stop the Spray, which aims to do away with the practice of using glyphosate sprays on forests to do away with deciduous species such as aspen and birch, and for his column in the Prince George Citizen. To further add to things, Mike Morris — who, as mentioned above, was the B.C. United MLA in this riding for about a decade — has appeared at rallies with Steidle on this issue.

All of which is to say, this should be an interesting riding to watch.

Prince George-North Cariboo

• Denice Bardua, BC NDP

• Sheldon Clare, Conservative Party

• Coralee Oakes, Independent

• Randy Thompson, BC Green Party

The intrigue in this riding is that unlike Giddens in Prince George-Mackenzie, the B.C. United candidate here was not asked to run with the B.C. Conservatives after her party withdrew from the race. That means Coralee Oakes, an MLA since 2013, is now running as an Independent, a handful of former B.C. United MLAs around the province to be taking this step. She’s up against Sheldon Clare, who is past-president of a group called the National Firearms Association. Clare kicked off his campaign by circulating an op-ed which the Citizen refused to print, saying they don’t take op-eds from candidates, but which they reported on:

"I’ve been accused of inappropriate behaviour such as forming social connections with former students and owning firearms, all of which have been twisted to question my integrity," he wrote. "I want to be clear: I have always taken my role as a mentor and educator seriously, and any relationships I’ve formed have been based on mutual respect. My love for the shooting sports is well-known, and as a firearms safety instructor, I have always emphasized responsibility and discipline."

..

He called allegations that he harbours feelings of racism and misogyny "deeply painful," saying they don't align with his principles.

The article ended somewhat oddly:

Clare was contacted by The Citizen Friday morning and said that with the exception of one minor error he stands by the statement. He said he would follow up with an explanation of the error but could not be reached later in the day.

Citizen staff were unable to find any online evidence of the things Clare wrote were being said about him, and the paper has not received any tips or other information about Clare.

The full editorial was printed by the right-leaning Western Standard and in the time since, a bit more of a clear picture has emerged of what he was referring to, such as here and here.

Clare ran as an independent in the 2015 federal election, receiving 657 votes in Cariboo-Prince George— fifth place, in which Todd Doherty of the federal Conservatives (unaffiliated with the B.C. Conservatives) got 19,688 votes.

Neither the NDP nor the Green party candidates have an electoral history I’m aware of. Denice Bardua (NDP) is listed as a payroll assistant for Quesnel’s School District 28 and Randy Thompson (Green) has on his website that he works for the City of Quesnel.

Prince George-Valemount

• Rosalyn Bird, Conservative Party

• Gwen Johansson, BC Green Party

• Clay Poutney, BC NDP

This is the most straightforward of the three Prince George ridings. With longtime MLA Shirley Bond opting to retire from provincial politics rather than contest her seat as an Indepedent, we have newcomer Rosalyn Bird with the Conservatives, Gwen Johansson, the former mayor of Hudson’s Hope and Site C critic Gwen Johansson running with the Greens and Clay Poutney, former chief of the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation, running with the B.C. NDP.

This riding also has some candidate profiles already thanks to the Rocky Mountain Goat newspaper in Valemount:

• The Goat interviews BC Conservative candidate Rosalyn Bird.

• The Goat interviews BC NDP candidate Clay Pountney.

• The Goat interviews BC Green Party candidate Gwen Johansson.

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News roundup:

• It’s detour day one if you take the John Hart Bridge.

• New dog park opening off of Ferry Drive.

• Hundreds gather in orange on National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Prince George. More photos.

• A Lheidli T’enneh First Nation elder’s guide to Truth and Reconciliation.

• All-time points leader Riley Heidt is coming back to the Cougars.

• The Kodiaks have clawed their way out of last place.

• New direct flights to Kelowna have started.

• Former pro-wrestler from Prince George to be featured at Vancouver International Film Festival.

• Permits issued for 9 new single-family Prince George homes in August.

• One dead in Quince Street housefire.

• Suspects in custody after heavy police presence on Cuddie Crescent in Prince George.

• No injuries in five-vehicle collision on Victoria Street.

• Oct. 10 trade show focuses on grants for non-profits.

• Willow Basket Quilting Shoppe collaborates with competitors.

• Wildflower Farm hosts creative workshops and bouquet making.

• New moon just dropped.

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Send feedback by emailing northerncapitalnews@gmail.com. Find me online at akurjata.ca.