Thoughts on BC Politics and More

The voters in the provincial riding of Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream elected Tara Armstrong in October 2024 to represent them as a British Columbia Conservative MLA. She won the riding with a solid 53.92% of the vote with the NDP coming in at a distant second with 35.25%. Her win was all but guaranteed as the area has been a strong anti-NDP stronghold for generations. When Kevin Falcon folded the BC United Party up and packed it in Armstrong has no competition on the right. Independent Kevin Kraft, formerly of BC United, had no official banner to run under and he pulled in a measly 6.5% of the vote. The brief history That all changed when the party expelled Dallas Brodie early in 2025 for her belittling comments on the survivors of Residential School. Her comments were considered so off putting and inappropriate that the BC Conservatives didn't even want her. New Democrats might smarmily declare that the bar has to be pretty high for them to toss out a member ...

The following commentary references a story this morning (December 29th) from CBC News:    Why this Independent MLA wants to make it easier for MLAs to be ousted by voters   Amelia Boultbee’s private member's bill seeks to lower the threshold for a successful recall... To be fair, there needs to be a careful line drawn between voters who are unhappy with a MLA's genuine work, and voters whose choice for MLA lost, and who won't accept that the majority of voters didn't vote the same way they did.  I've changed my opinions on recalls. It was one of the first things I asked Chief Election Officer Ms Campbell at the Thompson Nicola Regional District (TNRD) as I signed the paperwork as an election candidate; what are the processes of a recall if residents don't find me accountable so I can tell voters during election I am about accountability. I was told for the local order of government, there aren't any legislated recall processes and remember being...

It's not so easy to remove a politician from office between elections in Canada. That's due, in part, to the fact there are few jurisdictions in the country where laws to recall an elected representative are in place. And even where recalls are an option, the requirements to trigger one are challenging, some political observers say. But the process is currently being played out in a major way in Alberta, where, thanks to citizen-led petition drives, 20 members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) who belong to the governing United Conservative Party (UCP) — including Premier Danielle Smith — are facing recall petitions from constituents. One Alberta NDP MLA is also facing a recall ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Premier Danielle Smith sounds frustrated. Here she is, answering questions about a campaign to fire her as a member of the legislature. ... there are these recall campaigns where UCP politicians are targeted for firing and now Smith is on the list. The story makes the national news. There is analysis on what this all means. Is Smith in trouble? No doubt many newshounds hope the answer is Yes. This avalanche of recall campaigns , complete with a snazzy website on how to try and get a member of the legislature punted, really took off after the striking teachers were sent back to the classroom by the Smith government with a contract offer of more pay, more staff, more schools but still not enough on the table to soothe the irate educators. Smith says lefties have weaponized democratic processes ... CLICK HERE for the full story

... Under the Indigenous section of the party’s priorities on its website, OneBC says it wants to “defund the reconciliation industry." It also wants street names to be in English, to end land acknowledgements and to remove Truth and Reconciliation Day, observed annually on Sept. 30, as a provincial holiday.  Now, calls for the OneBC leader and MLA to resign are growing.  An online petition calling on Brodie to resign launched in March. It has since garnered about 1,800 signatures.  In early November, the First Nations Leadership Council called for Brodie’s immediate resignation.  Last week, Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc kúkpi7 (chief) Rosanne Casimir joined the calls for Brodie to resign ... CLICK HERE for the full story 

Creation-turning-on-the-creator is a well-worn trope in popular cinema, usually serving as a cautionary tale or providing some deserved poetic justice. Alberta’s experiment with voter recall is shaping up to be a real-world case study of this phenomenon. It is certainly a cautionary tale for other governments, but also, arguably, some well-earned comeuppance for this government. Unfortunately, with the potential embarrassment of seeing their own members devoured by recall, the UCP is prepared to inject some chaos into what’s already shaping up to be a tumultuous period. Things are going to get messy ... CLICK HERE for the full story 

Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream MLA Tara Armstrong has been the centre of numerous controversies since she was elected a year ago, and now some of her constituents have announced they will be trying to kick her out of office. Advocacy Canada’s founder and president and one of Armstrong’s constituents, Wilbur Turner, said lots of people have asked him to lead the effort to recall the OneBC MLA. “I am considering it,” he said. “It’s really important that we get involved in democracy in a way that when a politician is really being harmful, that we all stand up and do something about it and don’t just talk about it" ... CLICK HERE for the full story