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July 9, 2013 - No. 83
What It Means to Be Political in BC
By-Election
Movement to Defeat Christy Clark in
Westside-Kelowna Gains Momentum
Westside-Kelowna
By-Election
• What It Means to Be Political in the
By-Election
• Participate in Politics; Fight for Renewal!
• Westside-Kelowna Residents Attend Discussion
Forum
• Movement to Defeat Christy Clark in
Westside-Kelowna Gains Momentum
- Charles Boylan
• Peculiarities Arising from Clark's Dilemma in
By-Election
- TML Correspondent
• Issues Facing BC and Westside-Kelowna
• Vote in the By-Election!
Westside-Kelowna By-Election
What It Means to Be Political in the By-Election
Political militants are going throughout the
Westside-Kelowna BC constituency to discuss and defend a pro-social
agenda and new direction for the economy. They are energized with the
work and battle to defend the rights of all in the face of the
anti-social austerity agenda of the Liberal regime. Their tenacity
in the face of the well-financed neo-liberal forces is inspiring people
to dare to dream that a pro-social alternative is possible.
The activists are hearing from workers, First Nations,
youth, seniors and small businesspeople who are sick and tired of their
lack of political power and their systematic marginalization. The
people want to be in the thick of politics whether they have gobs of
money or not, whether they are a "somebody" or not.
The outmoded multiparty electoral system has the people tied up in
knots unable to free their minds and bodies to participate consciously
in the political process and decision-making.
July 6 meeting in
Westside-Kelowna to discuss the need for a pro-social BC.
Time for a Change!
Determined to change the situation by going directly to
the people, the partisans of a pro-social program are making strides by
drawing people into discussions and opening their thinking to the
possibility of organizing themselves into the kind of political force
required to bring into being a pro-social BC. From their own direct
experience people
realize they cannot bring about change on their own. Only through
discussing, hashing out a pro-social program and new direction for the
economy, and working together to bring it into being can they hope to
defeat the power of big money and monopoly right.
Workers and union officials report how arrogant the big
capitalists have become, where they do not even make a pretence of
upholding democracy and people's rights. Some stoop so low as to simply
tell their employees to vote for the leader of the anti-social Liberal
regime "or else..."
The owner of one company, which employs over a thousand
workers mainly in Kelowna, threatened its employees bluntly that if
Premier Clark is not elected the company will move its operations to
Alberta.
A Kelowna gas drilling worker who works in northeastern
BC said every thawing season he is laid off until the ground is solid
again. This year his boss told him when he was laid off in April that
if the Liberal regime were not re-elected he would not be recalled
because the operation and recruiting would all
be moved to Alberta.
These assaults on the basic right to conscience cannot
and should not be forgiven! These anti-worker threats and extortion
have become routine in this period, encompassing not just elections but
a refusal to engage in collective bargaining, as teachers and all
sectors of the economy know all too well. Take it or we will lock you
out, workers are told, or better still, we will have the Legislature
pass a law forcing you back to work with dictated terms of employment.
It is clear that no headway will be made until those who have usurped
power by force and through fraud are held to account!
In fact, the working
people do not accept these threats and criminalization. This arrogance
has a flip-side that dares
people to fight back in a conscious and organized way. Refuse to live
under the dictate of monopoly right! Fight for public right and an
alternative fit for human beings to flourish!
Participate in Politics; Fight for Renewal!
The antidote to retrogression is the fight for renewal.
The unity and determination of the people to discuss and work for a
pro-social alternative will put an end to the arrogance, retrogression
and dictate of monopoly right. It is not so difficult to imagine that
increased investments in social programs such as education
and health care would give the economy a boost and improve the
well-being of the people. It is pathetic that such a thing as public
debt is thrown at the people as an excuse to degrade social programs
and public services. The ruling elite say the problem prevents
the society from looking after its own people. If this is the case,
then why not put a moratorium on interest payments? That would free up
millions.
 Look at the millions in
revenue that BC Hydro has contributed in the past to the public
treasury and the millions still being made by BC Liquor Stores. The
Liberal regime is attacking those great sources of public revenue
through privatization then turns around and screams about the public
debt and deficits.
Such hypocrisy and betrayal! The government should be expanding its
sources of income through public enterprise instead of selling it off
such as BC Rail and those damnable run-of-river scams bankrupting BC
Hydro. Public enterprise, besides providing revenue becomes a secure
place to work at a Canadian standard
of living.
Is it so difficult to imagine that food security and
local manufacturing would give the economy a boost? Why are we hooked
on this export of raw material? Why can we not come to some agreement
with First Nations that recognizes their fundamental rights? Why is
retrogression so in vogue with the authorities
as if suddenly in the twenty-first century we can no longer provide
even basic education and health care and guarantee the rights of the
people? What happened to the land of progress and great thinking! Why
are the electors presented with a list of a few political parties and
told to mark an X beside one of the names
and that is pretty much that for political involvement? Is this really
the twenty-first century when the thinking and political system seem so
nineteenth century?
The one thing that is definitely not nineteenth century
is the economy, which is now dominated by huge global companies, which
have put their private interests right inside the executive power of
government and seemingly beyond the control of public right.
Productivity has increased a hundredfold yet the distribution
of what workers produce and the priorities of investment appear to have
regressed harming the natural and social environment. The economy
lurches from crisis to crisis never able to establish any stability or
security for the people.
The first step in changing the situation is to do
something about it, to be political. That is what activists are doing
in this by-election and they are asking everyone to join in.
Join the discussion and campaign for a pro-social
agenda, democratic renewal and new direction for the economy. Join the
work; be political! Contact the activists at 250-768-7782.
Westside-Kelowna Residents
Attend Discussion Forum
 On a hot summer Saturday evening July 6,
people gathered in a public political forum to discuss the major issues
facing voters and all British Columbians during the present
by-election. The four invited speakers, broadcaster Charles Boylan,
film-maker Damien Gillis, retired teacher Alice Rees, and Joan Phillip,
a Squamish/Okanagan Indigenous activist, started the ball rolling. This
kicked off a lively discussion with at least 15 contributions from the
floor.
Carole Gordon, the NDP candidate in the Westside-Kelowna
by-election joined the gathering together with several campaigners who
had been out canvassing. She thanked the audience when the moderator
Robert Macdonald, director of the Okanagan Institute, asked her to say
a few words. She said she had come
to listen, but then responded for a few moments to some of the points
made by the audience.
Two other candidates running as independents also came
forward to give views about their concerns. Several speakers addressed
the practicality of joining forces to defeat Premier Christy Clark in
the by-election and called on everyone to lend a hand to mobilize some
of the 51 per cent of the electors who did
not vote in the May 14 provincial election.
Members of the audience signed up to receive two website
journals, The Common Sense Canadian and TML. Many
also signed up to join future discussions and actions in the region. A
generous collection helped finance the forum, as did contributions from
the Education and Training
Employees' Association, an ESL teachers' union that also participated
in defeating Clark in Point Grey during the general election.
Gordon invited the organizers, invited speakers and
others to join her campaign workers' social in West Bank after the
forum. At the social, lively discussion continued over refreshments.
Movement to Defeat Christy Clark in
Westside-Kelowna Gains Momentum
- Charles Boylan -
Christy Clark's Liberal Party, with the backing of the
oil, gas, mining, forestry, banking and media monopolies fashioned an
electoral coup on May 14, winning a majority government in British
Columbia. However, Clark herself was defeated in Point Grey by
opposition candidate David Eby by 1,062 votes.
 The defeat of Clark came
about through the mass mobilization of voters including UBC resident
students, the environmental movement, various progressive civic forces
and trade unionists. A small private sector teachers' union local
invested finances and time to inform and mobilize UBC student voters to
vote
between April 16 when the writ was dropped and April 27 when students
had to leave their residences. Clark's defeat was as shocking to her,
as the overall Liberal majority was shocking to the polity which had
been led to believe the NDP victory was all but certain.
Immediately, the independent politics of the BC working
class asserted itself through TML with a call to defeat
Christy Clark in the pending by-election. This bold call was in sharp
contrast to various forces who were so dismayed by the defeat of the
NDP they threw up their hands in surrender saying it would be better to
allow Clark to be given a "pass" so she could carry on her work as
Premier. That is how things are done, electors were told.
With considerable courage and the support of NDP leader
Adrian Dix, Carole Gordon stepped forward to run against Clark in the
July 10 Westside-Kelowna by-election. Clark upstaged the event by
announcing at the same time that a Malaysian firm would possibly build
a multi-million dollar liquefied natural gas plant in BC, which the
mass media turned into an event announcing money would soon be falling
from the sky.
The reality of the present situation facing the largely
working class voters in Westside-Kelowna is sinking in. Many former
Liberal voters are scandalized by Clark dumping their MLA and seeking a
seat in his place. Working class voters are either so fed up with
politicians and politics they refuse to vote, or else they state
emphatically they will vote for opposition candidate Carole Gordon. So
far, only 10 per cent, 4,512 out of 45,649 registered voters have cast
ballots in the advanced polls or electoral office. How many will turn
out on July 10 is a big question. Clark is not a popular candidate. But
the NDP has not put forward an alternative to the neo-liberal agenda
which convinces electors that it will do things differently. According
to the old politics, it is a matter of whether voters are
persuaded that electing Gordon will help to hold the Liberals in check
in the Legislature or whether they swallow the view that having the
Premier in the riding will make them the beneficiaries of Liberal
largesse. The other point of view which is being advanced by the
advocates for renewal is to imbue the electors with the consciousness
of their own power -- they can vote in this election in a manner which
makes a huge statement -- we oppose the neo-liberal agenda pushed by
this Premier and this Liberal government. A large turnout against Clark
would definitely register a blow against the Liberal government and its
neo-liberal austerity agenda. A defeat would make an even larger
statement -- it would leave the Premier still without a seat yet
remaining in power. Would she then search forlornly for another riding
to contest or hand in her resignation as an unelectable leader? Many
voters seem intrigued by that prospect. Bring it on, they say.
Working class voters live in a wide-range of housing in
the riding, from $600,000 homes in the new sub-divisions in West
Kelowna to mobile trailer homes. Their occupations range from
relatively well-paid construction workers and professionals to lower
paid service workers and pensioners. But regardless
of where they live, upscale or low-scale homes, I hear the same thing
time and again: government is not looking after the public interest;
political parties are all the same; wages and working conditions are
going downhill; economic insecurity is increasing; BC cannot carry on
without developing manufacturing; the
big oil, gas and resource extracting companies are too rich and
powerful; the people are powerless in the present political set-up. One
voter told me that a Liberal canvasser had said to him that the Liberal
Party was "desperate" to elect Clark. He chuckled at why the person
would make such a confession.
What is encouraging is that voters who have not yet
voted are, in the main, open to discussion. They respond seriously to
the argument that electing Gordon will send a sharp message of
discontent to the Liberal government in Victoria and Harper in Ottawa.
It remains to be seen whether Gordon's foot soldiers
are numerous enough to overcome the media bias for Clark and the
"Bennett legacy" or habit of conservative voting in Kelowna. But this
by-election so far is no pushover for Clark, and as momentum to defeat
her increases the contest is becoming sharper.
A couple of other indicators that this is a closer race
than Clark bargained for are the two public debates held by all the
candidates. The first, organized on July 4 by the West Bank Chamber of
Commerce and the CBC, saw Clark and Gordon go head to head in front of
the usual partisan divided audience.
Typical of contemporary political life, the audience had no role to
play. All questions were posed by the CBC. The voters could only clap
or boo; they were not even allowed to hand out leaflets. During the
debate, the Conservative candidate quipped at Clark's promise to build
a second bridge between West
Kelowna and Kelowna over Lake Okanagan, saying he did not know if it
was Christy Clark who was running or Kris Kringle.
The second debate took place at the Streaming
Café live over the internet, again with no audience
participation or questions. In both events, Gordon strongly criticized
the Liberal Party record holding Clark accountable for the increasing
costs of hydro due to private power production and the government's
ongoing
cuts to education and health care. Overall observers felt that Gordon
held her own against Clark.
Clark with her usual hyperbole and smile continued the
tack taken up in the May 14 election of asserting that all the NDP
wants is to grow government and increase taxes, while she wants to grow
the economy and decrease taxes. Unlike Pinocchio, her nose is the only
thing that did not grow.
Gordon also made some inroads with Indigenous voters
from the West Bank First Nation by attending a small Idle No More
event at the Kelowna city park on Canada Day. Clark attended the
"Westside Daze" on July 1, which attracted fewer than 150 people. She
cut and gave out Canada Day cake
for attendees. One wag remarked, watch out, the last prominent female
political personality to tell people to eat cake came to a bad end.
The next day, Tuesday, July 2, Clark was grandstanding
on the steps of the Legislature with the RCMP posturing about a
terrorist plot; an event so obviously concocted by some covert agency
by setting up some luckless learning disabled youth that even the Vancouver Province questioned its
authenticity.
On the eve of the by-election, the big question remains,
what role will voters play on July 10? Normally voter turnout in a
by-election is much less than in a general election. On May 14, only 49
per cent of registered voters cast a ballot. It is crucial those who
are opposed to the neo-liberal anti-social offensive understand they
can make a difference in this by-election. Not only a difference, they
can go down in BC history: We defeated Christy Clark! Or: We gave
Christy Clark a real run for her money! It can be done! All out to get
out the vote on July 10!
Peculiarities Arising from Clark's Dilemma in
By-Election
- TML Correspondent -
Christy Clark's political dilemma, facing a strong
challenge in the "safe seat" Westside-Kelowna by-election, underlines
once again the incoherence and outmoded nature of the present political
system of representative government. In the May 14 general election in
BC, the popular will of the people was not allowed
to mature through a thorough informed discussion and debate. The
popular will was not allowed to express itself as the political will
through an objectively fair election of candidates chosen by the polity
itself.
The population was overwhelmed and rendered powerless by
mass media lies, disinformation, omission and misinformation. The
Liberal Party spent massive amounts of money to manipulate base
emotions by attacking the personality of the opposition leader Adrian
Dix so as to make sure no discussion took place on the concrete results
of neo-liberal rule. The marginalization of the polity was so acute
that less than 58 per cent of registered voters cast a ballot. Much
more decisive in compounding the anachronism of party dominated
politics is their monopoly power to select candidates with no reference
to the polity as a whole. No heed is paid to where the people work,
live or attend school and the organizations and leaders they give rise
to in the course of making a living and dealing with the problems they
and society face.
A salient feature of the outdated system of
representative democracy is the over-whelming power of a single person
elected as the leader by a major party. A handful of the polity,
members of a political party, pick the personality who will be the de facto all powerful "leader" for
four years after he or she wins "a majority of seats" in the
Legislature, even if such a majority is not representative of the
interests of the population or society.
Clark emerged as BC's Liberal Premier in the first place
by outmanoeuvring her Liberal rivals. All of them were prominent
cabinet ministers at the time former Premier Campbell resigned, after
he fell into irreparable disrepute. Clark herself had resigned years
earlier as cabinet minister and MLA. She had become
a radio host for a monopoly broadcaster before running for and winning
the Liberal leadership in February 2011 with Liberal party members'
votes garnered mainly from NDP held constituencies. Clark did not feel
confident to run for a legislative seat in her own constituency, so she
chose to run in Campbell's former
riding, Point Grey, where she barely defeated the opposition candidate
David Eby by 562 votes in the May 2011 by-election but which she lost
in the recent general election.
 Clark's defeat in Point
Grey to Eby by 1,063 votes in the May 14 general election immediately
raised several questions. Who is paying her salary? A BC premier is
paid a $95,000 bonus on top of her MLA salary of $105,000. Apparently,
she is being paid through a special "carryover" fund allotted to MLAs
who lose their seats.
She is not an MLA but she continues as the Premier. In
that position, determined solely by a small group of Liberal Party
members, Clark dictated who would be in the Cabinet/government of BC
without herself holding a seat in the Legislature. She not only decided
who would be the ministers, but actually wrote
every one of them a detailed letter of instructions, as to what she
decided they must do during their "mandate." For example, the new
education minister was told he must impose a "ten year peace" on BC
school teachers without increasing funding for public K-12 education.
It is safe to say all Clark's detailed instructions to
each and every ministry, itself contrary to "parliamentary democracy"
and "ministerial discretion" etc, did not spring from her brain.
Clearly, a cabal of forces is directly representing specific monopoly
interests and dictating their objectives through the Premier.
But the cabal's Premier lacks the nicety of a
legislative seat! This threw the Liberal caucus into a tizzy,
especially the MLAs from the Okanagan Valley region of BC, which has
historically always elected "free enterprise" MLAs. Kelowna was the
home seat of WAC Bennett, founding BC Social Credit Premier
in 1952.
Apparently, the Okanagan Liberal MLAs were all waiting
for Clark to approach them. Sources say Kelowna-Lake Country MLA Norm
Letnick was approached, but he set out demands considered too high for
Clark to meet for him to relinquish his seat. Needless to say, he was
not appointed to cabinet. Another MLA, Ben Stewart, owner of Quail's
Gate Winery located in West Kelowna is said to have offered up his
Westside-Kelowna seat. Clark was quoted as saying, "I want to thank you
Ben; you've put the needs of our province first. I'm humbled by your
act of character." It would seem that Clark's selection of Stewart did
not sit well with his wife who wrote a disgruntled blog article, taken
down shortly after it appeared.
No doubt, Clark chose the riding because she assumed it
is a "safe seat." Stewart won by 12,987 votes to the 6,790 votes of his
nearest rival, elementary school teacher, Carole Gordon. Trying to
assume the mantle of the Bennett dynasty, Clark declared in Kelowna
that she was upholding WAC Bennett's "free
enterprise" legacy, and further she would buy a second home in the city.
The Social Credit "free enterprise" legacy is far more
complex and different than Clark's trite words attempt to suggest.
Bennett's Social Credit party took power in BC in the early 1950s when
monopoly interests, especially U.S. imperialist interests wanted to
establish aluminum production for war using the province's
great potential for hydroelectricity, and to open up northern BC to
wood and mining interests. Private monopoly interests in that day
required government to build at tremendous public expenditure and at
considerable cost to the environment, farmers and Indigenous people, a
massive publicly-owned BC Hydro electric
system based on flooding the Columbia and Peace River valleys. Bennett
expropriated the privately-owned BC Electric Company to create BC Hydro
in 1962. In 1960, he replaced the privately-owned Blackball and CPR
Ferries with the publicly-owned BC Ferries, which monopolized ferry
traffic on the BC West
Coast. He extended the Pacific Great Eastern Railway and re-arranged it
as publicly-owned BC Rail. Further, Bennett bragged he led the only
province in Canada that never paid a penny to private schools.
How does the Social Credit "free enterprise" legacy of
the time compare with the Clark/Campbell regime? Her Liberal government
has de facto bankrupted BC Hydro by indebting it over $40 billion by
forcing it to buy privately produced electricity at $125 a mega-watt
hour while selling it to industrial customers
for $40 a mega-watt hour. BC Hydro, which before the present Liberal
government generated up to $1 billion in revenue for the public
treasury and provided cheap power for industrial and household users
alike, has now been set up for privatization.
Both BC Ferries and BC Rail were outright privatized by
the Liberal government Clark belonged to, the latter to a U.S. rail
company. Private schools are now financed over $250 million annually,
while public K-12 and post-secondary education are starved by cutbacks.
Finance capital has further degenerated becoming
ever more parasitical and crisis-ridden, seeking maximum profits
through robbing the public treasury, stripping resources and exporting
them as rapidly as possible, destroying BC manufacturing holus bolus
and engaging in the redistribution of already produced value.
This set of contradictions between the legacy of WAC
Bennett, a capitalist government serving the needs of private interests
when U.S. imperialism was expanding its investments into BC's resource
extraction during the 1950s and 1960s, and the present Liberal
government of Christy Clark when government has
degenerated into a kleptocracy directly under the dictate of the most
rapacious financial oligarchs could not be more sharp.
Similarly, the degeneration of political life and
political institutions of the "international community" of imperialist
states headed by the United States of America is also reflected in the
increasingly alienated political arrangements in BC where the
party-dominated system is in deep disrepute with the masses. The
May 14 election victory of the Liberal Party does not reflect a popular
choice of the masses, and if Christy Clark actually goes down to her
opponent in Westside-Kelowna, she will have broken yet another WAC
Bennett legacy! That break with the Bennett tradition will undoubtedly
induce a smile to the majority
of British Columbians.
Issues Facing BC and Westside-Kelowna
"This by-election gives the people of Westside-Kelowna
the right and opportunity to decide!" reads a leaflet circulated in the
constituency by those calling on the people of Westside-Kelowna to vote
against Christy Clark as a expression of their opposition to the
neo-liberal anti-social agenda she promotes. The text was part of the
initiative to hold the public forum on July 6 to discuss the issues
facing BC and the people of Kelowna-Westside. Extracts follow:
Let Us Together Work Out a New Direction for the
Economy and Province
Together we can use the by-election to express our
concerns with the direction of the province and its economy.
 The bedrock for a modern
economy is food security, manufacturing, social programs and public
services. The exploitation of natural resources cannot provide a
prosperous future without those resources tied to food security, local
manufacturing, social programs and public services.
A government that constantly chips away at public
education, health care and public services does not deserve to govern.
Investments in social programs and public services should be increased
and everything done to assist local manufacturing and food security to
provide a bright future for our children and all
of us.
The Liberal government thinks that putting all our eggs
in the liquefied natural gas (LNG) basket and forcing austerity on
ordinary people will serve us well. How will that guarantee a future
here in Westside-Kelowna?
How does constantly forcing down wages, benefits and
pensions for working people strengthen the economy? It does not. It
means value is taken out of the economy.
How does constantly attacking teachers and health care
and public service workers and their rights guarantee a great education
and a healthy and safe life for our children, seniors and ourselves? It
does not. The floods in southern Alberta and eastern BC show how
important public services are to our lives and
security. Better and more thoughtful planning and increased investments
in social programs and public services are the future.
The people of BC have never approved austerity as an
economic system. Restraint and austerity under the banner of paying the
moneylenders will not give rise to prosperity and a future; they give
rise to poverty, unemployment and insecurity as we have seen in Greece,
Spain and anywhere else a neo-liberal austerity
program to pay the rich has been imposed.
The By-Election Is an Opportunity to Discuss the
Practice of the Liberal Government and Hold It to Account
After the 2009 provincial election, the Liberal
government surprised us all with its harmonized sales tax, the HST,
which put more of the burden of taxation on individuals instead of on
the big companies where it belongs.
The people of BC saw through the hated HST and defeated
it. Before that, the Liberals sold off BC Rail to a U.S. company and
became embroiled in a terrible scandal that reached all the way to the
Premier's Office resulting in two convictions and the public paying $6
million in legal bills for those convicted
so there would be no exposure of the political hands involved.
With the Liberal privatization of electricity production
through run-of-the-river projects, the government has indebted BC Hydro
with $40 billion in contracts to pay private producers $125 a MWH while
selling it to industrial consumers at $40 a MWH! The obvious result of
this folly is that household and small/medium
business consumers will pay escalating electricity rates, which has
already begun.
 The Liberal LNG basket
includes an enormous outlay of public funds to provide electricity,
water and other infrastructure for the big energy companies without
them guaranteeing anything in return. Almost eight billion dollars
($7.9 B BC Hydro estimate) is going towards building Site C on the
Peace River to
provide cheap electricity for companies such as Encana to use the
highly controversial fracking method to extract natural gas in the Horn
River fields in northeast BC.
Whether fracking should even be used is a big issue for
the people to decide. Fracking causes a huge impact on fresh water
reserves and raises other environmental and social issues that should
be discussed and studied carefully. Temporary jobs in construction
work-camps should not be tossed at the people in
the form of bribes to sway them to do something possibly very bad for
our children and all of us in the long-term.
LNG plants, Site C and fracking for gas are not a
program that will deal with the situation or contribute to solving
problems here in Westside-Kelowna. They will not bring economic
security. They will give a quick profit to the big construction
companies and tie the province to paying interest to the institutional
moneylenders stretching far into the future. These projects are based
on speculation and hope that the price of gas in China in 2016 and
beyond will be high enough to provide a return, even though the largest
gas reserves in the world have been discovered in western China and the
price of natural gas is under severe
downward pressure.
Fracking and LNG plants will not bring our forest
industry back to life. They will not provide secure long-term
employment nor deal with the need for manufacturing, food security,
social programs and public services right here in the Okanagan and
throughout BC.
BC has in the recent past lost 30,000 industrial jobs,
many in the forest industry. One hundred and sixty-five thousand people
are unemployed in BC while 70,000 "temporary foreign workers" work at
low pay and with no rights. Is that a good direction for the economy?
An economic program for the province requires the
recognition of the needs of those who create the wealth, the working
people of BC, the electors in this by-election who can use the occasion
to say no to the anti-social austerity agenda and program to pay the
rich.
The strength of the people is expressed through their
voice and actions in defence of their rights.
Vote in the By-Election!
The by-election in Westside-Kelowna is Wednesday, July
10. Eight
candidates are contesting the by-election:
- Jag Bhandari (JB), B.C. Vision
- Christy Clark, BC Liberal Party
- Carole Gordon, BC NDP
- John Marks,
Independent
- Silverado Brooks Socrates, Independent
- Sean Upshaw, BC
Conservative Party
- Dayleen
Van Ryswyk, Independent
- Korry Zepik, Independent
For full details on
when, where and how to vote, visit the Elections BC webpage for the
Westside-Kelowna by-election.
Read The Marxist-Leninist
Daily
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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