Foster Captures Liberal title

Published: March 08, 2009 6:00 AM Richard Rolke - Vernon Morning Star

The B.C. Liberals are ready to do battle for Vernon-Monashee. Eric Foster, Lumby mayor, topped the polls during the party’s nomination meeting Friday, meaning he will represent the Liberals during the May 12 provincial election. “I’m certainly thrilled,” said Foster. About 800 party members cast ballots during the meeting at the Schubert Centre from 2 to 8:30 p.m. “We had good numbers going in and our team sold lots of memberships (350),” said Foster. “People in Lumby really supported us and came out to vote. It was just tremendous.” Also seeking the nomination were Deb Leroux, Andrew Powell, Betty Selin and Michael Tindall, and Foster says the number of people on the ballot certainly added some uncertainty to the entire process. “It’s a funny scenario because you don’t know what anyone else is doing,” he said. But now that he’s the candidate, he hopes the other challengers will rally around him. “At the end of the day, all five of us have the same philosophy or we wouldn’t be part of the same party,” he said.

The next step will be for Foster to become familiar with party protocols for candidates and to begin preparing for the election. “We have to put a campaign team together because May is not that far away,” he said, adding that while he is fairly well known in Lumby, he must still ensure that residents of Vernon and Coldstream are familiar with him. “A lot of people are not interested in politics but we need them to come out and vote,” he said. Presently, being the Liberal candidate will not impact Foster’s duties as Lumby’s mayor, but he will take a leave of absence once the election campaign begins. If he is elected, he will resign as mayor. “Until the writ is dropped, I will be mayor every day,” he said. If Foster does become MLA, there could be a byelection in Lumby if more than one person pursues the mayor’s job. The Liberals were forced into a nomination race after current MLA Tom Christensen announced he would retire after this term ends. Running against Foster in Vernon-Monasheee will be NDP candidate Mark Olsen.