Premier Christy Clark visited the riding of Columbia River–Revelstoke on July 31 to throw her support behind Doug Clovechok who will run for the BC Liberals in next year’s provincial election.
“I am here to help nominate a candidate in a riding that is held by the New Democrats and has been since 2005. The reason I am here is because I believe we can win this riding back,” Clark said.
Clark called Clovechok “the best possible candidate to win this riding for the BC Liberals.
“What Doug is going to be facing in this next election is a candidate on the other side who does not believe in resource development,” she said. “A candidate who does not fundamentally believe in the power of the private sector. Adrian Dix says that resource development is a disease. I fundamentally disagree with that. That is what has built our province. It’s what has built the Kootenays. It is what is going to build our future for our children and families no matter where they live.”
Clovechok said Columbia River–Revelstoke had traditionally been right-leaning. “This has historically been a Social Credit riding, and was a BC Liberal riding. And we should never have lost it,” Clovechok said.
He said the Trans-Canada would be a priority for him. “Christy had the opportunity today to come through the Rogers Pass and she knows what our highway is like there. You can’t shut communities down for 18 days from the rest of Canada. We have to do something about that.”
He also spoke about “a group of people that are trying to limit our access to our back countries.”
“They want to shut down our back countries and shut down our waterways so that you and I and our kids don’t have the birthright that we have in British Columbia to use those systems,” he said. “It has got to stop and I am going to fight with you to do that.”
Clovechok added that he thinks people have to respect the environment, but did not see the need to be preservationist.
“We do not want the extinction of human beings from this land. We want to use them,” he said.
“Today what I will do is give you a promise. I promise you that I will represent this riding to Victoria ... I am not fun in the corners. My elbows are up and I tell you what, Norm Macdonald get your hockey helmet on, because it is game on,” Clovechok said. “No disrespect to Norm Macdonald because he is a nice guy, but I am more than a nice guy. I can out nice him and I can out work him.”
In order to wrest the riding back from the NDP, Clovechok will also face vote splitting from a revived BC Conservative Party, who are also vowing grassroots representation in Victoria.
In an Aug. 5 interview, BC Conservative Party leader John Cummins told the Times Review the party will nominate and select a candidate for Columbia River–Revelstoke in the fall.
“We’re elected to represent the folks,” Cummins said. He described a BC Liberal Party that serves big business and the BC NDP as beholden to big labour. He vowed the BC Conservatives would put the “interests of the constituents ahead of the interest of the party.”
~Darryl Crane/Golden Star
~AaronOrlando/Times Review