Kelowna-area candidates make final push before election day

With election day approaching, candidates in Kelowna-Mission and Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream are making their final pitches to voters, with public safety, healthcare, affordability and jobs among the key issues.

In Kelowna-Mission, Conservative candidate Gavin Dew is hoping to keep the riding in Conservative hands, pointing to healthcare and public safety as priorities.

“Conservatives are very committed to getting the 33,000 unused square feet of space at Kelowna General Hospital opened,” Dew said. “We’re very committed to mandatory care at Okanagan Correctional Centre.”

Dew is running against NDP candidate Miriam Rycroft, Green candidate Saoirse MacKinnon, and Abraham Nordine of OneBC.

BC NDP Leader David Eby said Tuesday that Conservatives have taken the region for granted, arguing they cannot assume voters will automatically support them.

“We have to work harder in this region; we need to earn every vote,” Eby said, while on a campaign stop in Kelowna.

Dew disputed that characterization, criticizing the local NDP campaign.

“It’s difficult for me to see the NDP as working extra hard in this region when my local candidate has yet to show her face in Kelowna,” he said.

Rycroft’s photo is absent from the NDP campaign website’s candidate biographies, and a drive through the riding did not turn up NDP election signs promoting her candidacy.

On the eve of the election, a regional campaign manager said Rycroft was unavailable for an interview.

In neighbouring Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream, NDP candidate Binny Boparai is hoping to make gains in a riding that has traditionally favoured Conservatives.

Boparai, a farmer and business owner, said she believes voters may be ready to consider a different party.

“I think people are ready to give a different party a shot because I’m the type of candidate that shows up and answers the tough questions,” she said.

Boparai identified the cost of living and job creation as key priorities, arguing that stronger regional economic growth could help address a range of concerns.

“If we have growth, economic growth in our region, that’s going to bring on good jobs and that solves a lot of the other underlying issues,” she said.

Conservative candidate Pavneet Singh, also a business owner, identified homelessness and the economy among the issues facing the riding.

Singh argued that expanding natural resource development could help create jobs and strengthen the provincial economy.

“LNG will be double and triple by 2035, and we have resources. People want to go to work, and we have to create jobs, and economy will be better once we do that,” Singh said.

Singh also urged voters to reject another NDP term, saying: “British Columbia cannot afford one more term of NDP.”

Green candidate Carter Mochinski and OneBC candidate Alexandra Wright are also running in Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream.