Former MP speaks out

“The BC Conservative Party is not and has nothing to do with the Federal Conservatives and they are hoping you don’t know that.”

That’s the closing line of open letter by former Okanagan-Shuswap Conservative Member of Parliament Darrel Stinson.

Stinson is expressing his displeasure with how the BC Conservative Party has chosen candidates in the wake of Kevin Falcon’s suspension of the BC United campaign. In particular, Stinson is unhappy with the party bypassing long-time Lumby mayor Kevin Acton in favour of Dennis Geisbrecht in the Vernon-Lumby riding.

“To my knowledge, he ran three times over in Kamloops and didn’t make it. But more than that, we haven’t heard this man speak. He didn’t run a nomination and we had people here that ran nominations and won and raised money for the constituency here, for them to run in this constituency and yet they’ve been told to go home and sit down and be quiet. You know, that’s not democracy,” said Stinson.

He says it's insulting to local people to not give them the chance to select the candidate.

In his letter, Stinson points out that Acton was the only duly-elected nominee in the riding, but was never even vetted by the Conservatives. “This was planned long ago, including the placement of Gavin Dew in Kelowna over a successful and duly-elected nominee in that riding,” he wrote.

“These people went out there, they put their lives on hold in order to campaign and win their nominations. Then to be told, no you don’t have the right to run, to me that’s just not right,” added Stinson, who pointed to Acton’s accomplishments over several years as mayor in Lumby.

“He took a small community that was millions and millions of dollars in the hole and brought them out, and they’re making millions of dollars now. And he was able to do that as the mayor. What could he do as an MLA?”

After being passed over, Acton decided to continue his campaign as an unaffiliated independent candidate in Vernon-Lumby. He’s one of several who were left out in the cold after Falcon announced his deal with BC Conservative leader John Rustad. Stinson says the number of people who have decided to run as independents shows that they are fed up with being told what to do.

Stinson was a federal MP from 1993 to 2006, first elected under the Reform Party banner, before it morphed into the Conservative Party of Canada. He believes Rustad’s party is trying to ride on the coattails of the rising popularity of the federal party under the leadership of Pierre Poilievre.

The Conservative Party of BC did not respond to a request for comment on the matter.