With Labour Day in the rear view and the writ drop for the 2024 B.C. provincial election just two weeks away, the parties are ramping up for the fall campaign.
In the Bulkley Valley-Stikine (formerly Stikine) riding, the NDP, Conservative Party of B.C. and Christian Heritage Party (CHP) have nominated candidates.
On the ballot for the NDP is incumbent MLA and minister of Land, Water and Resource Stewardship Nathan Cullen.
Cullen became MLA for the first time in the 2020 provincial election after retiring from federal politics before the 2019 federal election.
Opposing Cullen for the Conservatives is Sharon Hartwell. The Conservatives elected the former Telkwa mayor as their candidate in December 2023.
She served as mayor of Telkwa from 1995 – 2009, and said the key considerations for her candidacy are healthcare, Indigenous relations, and climate change.
Representing the CHP is party leader Rod Taylor. Taylor is a veteran of several election campaigns at both the provincial and federal levels representing the party's advocacy for governance according to Christian principles and ethics.
The Conservatives are currently surging in the province as BC United (formerly the BC Liberals) have dropped out of the race. Even before that development, they were running second, just two percentage points behind the NDP according to projections by 338 Canada, an aggregator of polling results.
Now, 338 Canada has the Conservatives and NDP deadlocked in terms of popular vote at 44 per cent with the Green Party trailing with just 11 per cent support. The site still predicts an NDP win in terms of seats but the gap has closed.
In the North, though, the Conservatives lead the NDP by 29 percentage points and are expected to take seven of the nine seats comfortably.
The exceptions include Bulkley Valley-Stikine, which has been an NDP stronghold for more than a decade. Prior to Cullen, Doug Donaldson held the seat from 2009 until 2020.
Dennis MacKay, who just died on Aug. 14 was the Stikine representative for the BC Liberals for two terms before Donaldson.
Prior to the collapse of BC United, 338 Canada was projecting a landslide for Cullen in Bulkley Valley-Stikine, but now the site is showing the riding as NDP-leaning with Hartwell now within nine percentage points with a large margin of error at 10 per cent.
The only safe NDP riding in the North now is North Coast-Haida Gwaii. There, the popular three-term NDP MLA Jennifer Rice stepped down as the candidate at the end of the 2023-2024 legislative session.
In North Coast-Haida Gwaii,Tamara Davidson, a career federal civil servant, is facing the Conservative’s Chris Sankey. Davidson is still expected to cruise to victory.
The Skeena riding, currently held by BC United’s Ellis Ross was listed a week ago as a toss-up between former federal Skeena-Bulkley Valley Conservative candidate Claire Rattée and Terrace city councillor Sarah Zimmerman.
But with the announcement by BC United leader Kevin Falcon on Aug. 28, Rattée is now expected to win handily.
Ross announced he is not running again in favour of running federally for the Conservative Party of Canada in 2025.
The provincial election is scheduled for Oct. 19. The writ drops Sept. 21, marking the launch of the official campaign.
Nominations close on Sept. 28.
Other important dates include:
Oct. 9: Online and telephone voter registration closes.
Oct 10-13: Advance polling.
Oct. 13: Final day for requesting a mail-in voting package.
Oct. 15-16: Advance polling continues.
Voters can also vote any time at a district electoral office after Sept. 21 until 4 p.m. on election day. Electoral office locations and hours have yet to be identified by Elections BC.
