Liberals' Okanagan Overhaul

The ridings of the Central Okanagan are key pieces of Gordon Campbell's ruling coalition. But as the Liberals get ready for the next provincial election it is clear that political change is afoot and if Campbell and his mates hold onto power on May 12, this region will have new power brokers.

The Central Okanagan includes B.C's third largest city, Kelowna. It is the heartland of the once powerful Social Credit party and home to the Bennett clan, which produced two of the province's most iconic premiers: W.A.C Bennett and his son, Bill.

Current MLAs and frequent members of cabinet, Rick Thorpe (Okanagan-Westside) and Sindi Hawkins (Kelowna-Mission), have ridden shotgun with Campbell since he brought Liberals together with Socreds, Conservatives and Reformers under his party's centrist brand for the 1996 election.

The Kelowna-Lake Country MLAs meanwhile -- dentist John Weisbeck in 2001 and former Progressive Conservative MP Al Horning in 2005 -- have proven to be loyal government backbenchers.

The area gets a lot of attention from the provincial government. The most visible sign of its affection is the new floating bridge that connects Kelowna and West Kelowna (formerly the District of Westside) across opposite sides of Okanagan Lake. Local leaders had been vocally crying out for a new bridge for decades. The Liberals delivered it and named it after Bill Bennett, a tribute to a local hero that links the current government with the former Socred premier's legacy.

And Premier Campbell makes regular stops here, to announce projects like road upgrades and hospital expansions. Norm Letnick, the newly acclaimed Liberal candidate in Kelowna-Lake Country said he figures over the last seven and a half years the Liberals have committed more than $1 billion in government investment to this region.

"Over $1 billion," he said, making the case for why his constituents should stick with his party. "I don't know how good it has to get for us to say, you know, these guys are listening, they have been listening."

Letnick -- who had about 70 supporters venture out to his nomination meeting in frigid conditions on the last Saturday before Christmas to hear his acceptance speech -- is part of a wholesale turnover among Central Okanagan MLAs. Health concerns are forcing Thorpe (heart attack), Hawkins (leukemia) and Horning (stroke) to step aside.

Winemaker beats House leader's brother

After more than a year of speculation that at least one or two of the seats would become open, Thorpe was the first to announce his retirement. As minister of Small Business and Revenue, he had to let Campbell know his plans by a June deadline so that Campbell could replace him with someone who plans on running again (that person ended up being Kamloops-North Thompson MLA Kevin Krueger.)

His replacement as a Liberal nominee for next May's election is Ben Stewart, who owns the upscale Quails Gate Estate Winery. He is a successful businessman in what has become one of this area's primary industries and he beat out Rick de Jong, government house leader Mike de Jong's younger brother.

Stewart has deep roots in the community here and as the Vancouver Sun's Vaughn Palmer pointed out, he was a boyhood friend of Bill Bennett's son Brad, while Stewart's father was a long time supporter and fundraiser for Bill Bennett's campaigns.

In September, Horning became the second MLA to announce he wouldn't run again. The next day he was by Letnick's side, endorsing him as Letnick declared his candidacy. A business instructor at Okanagan College, Letnick spent the last three years on Kelowna's city council.

By his own admission, he has prepared for the possibility of a seat opening for about a year and a half, getting a team together and drumming up support among local Liberals. He also started work on a PhD in health care economics, looking to develop talents that could land him a more prominent role in government.

Both Letnick and Stewart ran for and lost the federal Conservative nomination for Kelowna-Lake Country to the current MP, Ron Cannan.

And while Letnick ran unopposed for provincial nomination, it was not an indication of how few people around here are interested in being a Liberal MLA.

Six compete for Hawkins' slot

It was Hawkins' announcement in November that a second bout of leukemia will keep her from running again that opened up the floodgates to pent-up political ambition.

Three days later, Hawkins long-time friend, Maxine DeHart, became the first of six Liberals to declare her candidacy. DeHart did so with a big splash at a press conference attended by over 80 supporters and all of Kelowna's media. DeHart is married to Chris DeHart, a descendent of Kelowna's second mayor, Francis DeHart, after whom two streets are named.

Besides her duties as director of sales at the Ramada Lodge Hotel, DeHart is a socialite with an air of celebrity to her. She is frequently the public face of charitable drives as the honourary chair or spokesperson for organizations like the United Way or the AIDS Walk. And for years her likeness adorned the side of city buses in giant ads for L.A. Weight Loss Program.

She also writes a weekly business column for the local community newspaper, the Capital News (note: this story's author is a reporter for the same paper). It reads, however, more like a gossip column, chronicling the comings and goings of Kelowna's business and political movers and shakers.

With her connections, an endorsement from former Kelowna mayor Walter Gray (who is also endorsing Letnick and working on his campaign) and a campaign team led by Dave Roseberry, a retired RCMP superintendent who ran federal campaigns for former Reform/Alliance/Conservative MP Werner Schmidt, DeHart instantly had the air of an establishment campaign. She is the candidate to beat.

And while she declined to offer her opinion when asked about specific issues, she expressed confidence she could do a good job.

"I've been in the community many years. I know the issues. I've been in business, been here at the hotel, I've been in tourism, I've been with the media. With the banking career (she worked for the Bank of Nova Scotia for 15 years), I am positive I can run the riding," she said.

Roots and rumours

Next out of the chute was Nicole Bullock, a businesswoman whose family has owned a big orchard in the area for generations. Having deep roots in the area is big a political asset here. However, Bullock has not been heard from much since she declared, and on Thursday announced she was dropping out of the race and throwing her support to former rival.

That candidate is Steve Thomson, who like Bullock comes from an agriculture background, still an important constituency in these parts despite its rapid urbanization. Thomson is taking a leave from his position as president of the B.C. Agriculture Council to pursue the nomination. He is well connected, having also served as chairman of both the Kelowna and B.C. Chambers of Commerce. He is positioning himself as someone with cabinet-level credentials.

Is anybody out there?

The fourth candidate gets the strangest candidacy announcement award. Mark Thompson is a pharmacist who used to own a couple of Shoppers Drug Mart franchises in Saskatchewan and sat on Saskatoon's city council for nine years. Thompson called a press conference at a hotel and when reporters arrived, he was the only person in the room. The crew from the local TV station walked out without even unpacking their camera.

There were no supporters present, no endorsements and when asked, Thompson declined to name anyone else involved in his campaign.

"We have a good number of people involved. We have a grassroots approach to this. We have room on our team for many people to join us but you might say we're in the hundreds of supporters who have already come on board," he said.

Yet he looked lonely in the all but empty room. Given that in the recent municipal election he fell far short of a spot on city council, placing 23rd out of 36 candidates, it will be hard for him to be seen as a contender. At the very least though, Thompson's presence next to Thomson's creates the possibility of name confusion for Liberals when they cast their ballots.

Shots at premier's carbon tax

The fifth candidate is not afraid to share his opinions, which the NDP has already used to take a shot at Gordon Campbell and the Liberals. Jack Pinder is a former vice-president of Western Star Trucks. Since 2000, he has worked as a consultant, helping clients secure government loans, bid on military contracts and develop business plans.

Pinder handed out a 12 page document staking out his personal opinion on several issues and the NDP seized on newspaper reports which said he opposes the Liberals' carbon tax. A press release from Vancouver-Hastings MLA, Shane Simpson, described Pinder as one of the Liberals' "star candidates."

"Campbell won't listen to British Columbians about the fuel tax, but maybe he'll listen to one of the star candidates his party has recruited," it said. "I hope more B.C. Liberal MLAs and candidates will have the courage to speak out. They know Gordon Campbell is totally out of touch with British Columbians on this issue."

Pinder responded by saying, "I'm not the leading candidate, I'm not the chosen candidate."

He also denied opposing the carbon tax, even though he had previously said he would "actively pursue to discontinue the carbon tax."

What got Pinder into trouble was that he has somewhat of a nuanced view of the carbon tax. He credits Campbell for being gutsy in trying to do something to address climate change, but feels that people don't really understand the tax and so dislike it. He also thinks the timing was wrong, having been introduced just as we were going into recession and gas prices reached record highs.

As an alternative to getting rid of the tax altogether, Pinder said he would support leaving it in place for two years as long as all the funds were used for road construction, which in his view would create jobs. He painted the proposal as a form of government stimulus to help nip the recession in the bud.

Big giver to UBC

The contingent of lawyers, business people and other professionals in their 30s and 40s who attended the press conference for the sixth candidate suggests that Brad Field is popular among influential people.

A local philanthropist (he and his wife Lori donated $100,000 to the UBC Okanagan library to establish the Field Reading room for students), Field is running on his record of having started a business in his living room and turning it into Pacific Safety Products, a multi-million dollar company employing hundreds of people.

What may work against Field, though, is the fact that over the years PSP slowly moved all of its operation (and the accompanying jobs) out of town and only left altogether just over a year ago. Still, Field is trying to turn a potential downside into a positive, saying he can use his experiences to help the government develop policies that will keep businesses here.

This will not be a short campaign. In fact, it will be much longer than the actual election these candidates are vying to run in. With the riding association in need of time to get its organization in order, a nomination meeting is not likely to be scheduled until late February or early March. But now that the new year is here, the jockeying to sign up new B.C. Liberal party members and convince current ones to change allegiances should begin in earnest.

And because the Liberals use a preferential ballot (members rank as many of the candidate as they wish) and because the large field means it is unlikely any candidate will get the necessary 50 per cent plus one needed to win the nomination in the first round of counting, a big part of the race will involve trying to capture those second choice votes. But given the wide level of support for the Liberals here (Hawkins, Horning and Thorpe all won their seats by wide margins in 2005), the winner stands an excellent chance of making it to Victoria.

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