Provincial Tories target Valley

Kelowna Daily Courier:

The B.C. Conservative Party aims to field a full slate of candidates in the Okanagan during the May provincial election. “We‘ll probably have a couple dozen candidates around the province, but we should have one in each Valley riding,” party president Wilf Hanni said Friday. He expects most of the candidates will be chosen by acclamation rather than through contested nominations. “It‘s getting late in the game, and we don‘t have enough constituency associations to have nomination processes in each riding,” Hanni said. On Friday, Kelowna resident Mark Thompson, who last month declared his intention to run for the Liberal nomination in Kelowna-Mission, said he was switching to the B.C. Conservatives. Among his reasons for changing parties, Thompson cited unhappiness with the Liberals‘ carbon tax and his sense the local Liberal MLAs had done little for the Kelowna area. “The Conservatives offer a real alternative to the Liberals,” Thompson said. “I stand for smaller government, lower taxes, strong families and the importance of the private sector.” The only other B.C. Conservative candidate so far in the Okanagan is Beryl Ludwig, for the Shuswap riding based around Salmon Arm. In the 2005 provincial election, the B.C. Conservatives got one-half of one per cent of all votes cast in the province, electing no members. Overall, the B.C. Conservatives placed behind the B.C. Marijuana Party and just ahead of the Work Less Party.