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“I am a Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, or free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind.” ~~ John G. Diefenbaker

KELOWNA-WEST BC Liberal MLA Ben Stewart is on the sidelines once again –- a place likely beginning to feel quite familiar to him, given past history


KELOWNA WEST .... riding timeline

... Ben Stewart takes riding for the BC Liberals in 2009 and 2013 nearly doubling (each time) the vote of 2nd place NDP candidates

... while her BC Liberal party wins the 2013 provincial election, Christy Clark herself loses in her home riding of Vancouver Point Grey to BC NDP candidate, and current Attorney General, David Eby

... Stewart steps down to allow Clark to run in Kelowna West where she takes the riding in the July 10th by-election (she also doubled the vote over the NDP candidate) ... Sean Upshaw, for the BC Conservative Party, came in at 3rd spot

... 2017 provincial election Clark retains the Kelowna West riding however without a majority Liberal government, she loses control of the legislature to John Horgan’s New Democrats, bolstered through a Confidence and Supply Agreement with the Green Party led by Andrew Weaver

.... on July 28th Clark announces she will be resigning as leader of the BC Liberals, and leaving politics as of August 4th.  It should be noted that during the election, and immediately afterwards, she had announced in no uncertain terms that she would be there for the people of Kelowna West, and had no intentions of resigning should she lose the general election.

NOTE ... she never did purchase a home in the riding of Kelowna West, making her basically a ‘carpetbagger’ (Vocabulary.com describes a modern day  ‘carpetbagger’  as an outsider who pretends to be an insider ... a person who tries to take advantage of a group by joining it only for their own personal benefit)

BC MLA Ben Stewart
GUESS WHAT ... another by-election courtesy of the BC Liberal Party!!

... Ben Steward returns from the vineyards to once again run and win, for the Liberals in the subsequent byelection held on February 14th, 2018

AND NOW??

In an exclusive story broken early last evening, Bob Mackin of theBreaker.news let it be known that Kelowna West’s Ben Stewart is out of the BC Liberal caucus ...
understands there was an emergency conference call for caucus members in which they were informed that the MLA in the BC Liberal stronghold has departed because of a matter related to an Elections BC investigation that involves a donation from his constituency assistant... 



And so, KELOWNA-WEST BC Liberal MLA Ben Stewart is on the sidelines once again –- a place likely beginning to feel quite familiar to him, given past history.

Bob Mackin’s story states that:

... (filings for the) second quarter of 2019 with Elections BC show that Stewart exceeded his contribution limit and the party returned $1,200 to him ... the only MLA listed in the prohibited contributions list for the period ... and that the ... opposition (Liberal) party is already a target of an RCMP investigation announced before the 2017 election ... into indirect political contributions and other potential contraventions of the BC Election Act ...

Stay tuned ... there’s more to come!

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