THIS WEEK: Election signs are everywhere; MLA Day joins the Findlay ship jumpers

THIS WEEK: Election signs are everywhere; MLA Day joins the Findlay ship jumpers

by | Aug 27, 2026

George Le Masurier photo

THIS WEEK: Election signs are everywhere; MLA Day joins the Findlay ship jumpers

By George Le Masurier

The nomination period for the Oct. 17 municipal election begins Sept. 1 and closes on Sept. 11. Candidate’s campaigns officially begin on Sept. 19. But, of course, unofficial campaigns began a long time ago.

 

T

he 2026 Comox Valley municipal and school board elections must be getting close. The hints are popping up everywhere. Anxious candidates have made early announcements. Selfie videos with vague chatter about local politics have popped up on social media. And long – and I mean really long – threads on superfluous, even redundant Facebook pages.

You know it’s election time, of course, when the old dinosaurs who ran things around here in the 1980s and 1990s and still feel entitled to it, launch yet another temporary website under yet another moniker. Maybe they have teamed up with last year’s angry young men crowd to push a pro-development and anti-progressive agenda. 

You know it’s election time when Manno Theos drives up from Nanaimo or flies in from Greece to claim he lives in Courtenay and, therefore, should be elected its mayor. He’ll have to knock the sunglasses off Mayor Bob Wells this time, and maybe another challenger or two.

Out in Comox, where the Good Old Boys and Gals enjoy consistent 4-3 majority votes, you know it’s election time when Ken Grant and Maureen Swift announce they are running for yet another term to test the limits of longevity in office. But it’s necessary because, you know, the town couldn’t possibly survive without them and, anyway, they need to hang around to tell the other two how to vote.

But unlike Swift and Grant, regional district Area C Director Edwin Grieve knows when it’s time to retire and make way for new people with fresh ideas.

You also know it’s election time when Arzeena Hamir announces she’s running for something. After her failed run for MLA with the Green Party, she will try to regain the regional district Area B director seat she lost to Richard Hardy in 2022. She’s one of the few women seeking office so far this year.

You know it’s election time when people start popping up on social media to regularly post critical commentary about the current mayor and council, but stop short of announcing their own candidacy. Presumably they think it’s clever to surprise the public at the last minute. “Breaking news! I’m running for office!”

Note to obvious candidates: Nobody thinks that.

Local accountant Darryl Robbins was a regular social media star earlier this year, leading many to suspect he would run for Courtenay council or even mayor. Then he went quiet. Maybe he’s changed his mind? Maybe he was just visiting USA baseball shrines this summer?

Sitting council member Evan Jolicouer apparently told many people he was going to run for mayor and then he suddenly stopped talking about it. Maybe a good choice, when you think about it. Who wants to get into a crowded race where you might actually poll fewer votes than Manno Theos?

You know it’s election time when someone announces, “I’m running!” and then offers only platitudes, like “We could be so much better! I think we should have less homelessness. I’ll kill all future tax increases!” News flash: Everyone is for those things. Having a realistic plan to achieve them is something else.

You know it’s election time when some really nice people, who love their community and do good things for their neighbors, decide to run. Good for them, democracy demands participation. 

But running for office because you’re nice isn’t enough. You need an agenda that you want to accomplish and a clear and realistic strategy to achieve it. Without that, you’re just another pretty face hoping for world peace.

Finally, you know it’s election time when almost everyone who is not a parent – and some of those, too – cannot name a single District 71 school trustee or have any idea what school trustees actually do in that swank new district office building. 

Who cares how teachers are looking after our kids? Let’s go get worked up about traffic circles. Pow! Bang! Yeah!

But don’t worry if you haven’t noticed any of these telltale election signs. You’re not alone. 

Far from it, you’re just part of the 70 percent of Comox Valley’s eligible voters (55 percent in Cumberland) who didn’t vote last year and presumably don’t really care. 

If 2022 history repeats itself, only about 30 percent of eligible voters will cast ballots in Courtenay, Comox and the regional district (45 percent in Cumberland). Which, as it turns out, is almost identical to the provincial average. So we can feel good about that.

But should we? Should we pride ourselves that just as many Comox Valley residents as the rest of British Columbians aren’t interested enough about local government to bother casting a ballot? Standing in line to vote? It’s just too much trouble, right? 

But whining about local government later on social media? Well, that’s fun and easy to do. Just grab a beverage and your digital device and log on to one of the 5,000 or so Facebook pages devoted to municipal politics. It’s the modern cure for boredom.

We could do so much better.

 

BRENDAN DAY JUMPS SHIP

Courtenay-Comox MLA Brendan Day announced late Wednesday that he has cut ties with the BC Conservative Party and will fill out his term as an independent. He cited disagreements with party leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay as his motivation.

“I have lost confidence in the judgement, conduct and ethical standards of her leadership and those she has chosen to surround herself with,” he said.

As of a few moments ago, Day had received 584 thumbs-up likes on Facebook, where he posted his announcement. Most of the comments praised Day for being “brave” and taking a “bold” stand and for making “a difficult decision.”

Day is the latest defection from the BC Conservatives. The BC Conservatives came close to forming the government in 2024, winning 44 seats. That number has dwindled to 32 sitting MLAs today. 

The Findlay ship is sinking and MLAs are jumping off to save themselves and possibly to form a new right-of-center party.

Findlay is a right-wing populist, a west coast version of Alberta’s Danielle Smith, who believes governing is all about “Faith, family and freedom.” She courts the Freedom Convoy crowd who oppose vaccine mandates and sexual orientation and gender identity education in schools. She supports unencumbered oil and gas extraction and more pipelines for resources to flow to (and possibly into) the west coast. Her chief of staff is openly opposed to abortion rights and has promised to close abortion clinics.

Findlay wants to repeal DRIPA, the province’s commitment to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. She continues to claim that the BC Supreme Court ruling recognizing Aboriginal title on public and privately owned lands in Richmond undermines all BC personal property rights. 

These policies and values appeal to the far right fringe.

Given that, this is a smart move by Day. Courtenay-Comox is not a safe seat for either progressives or conservatives because fringe groups have a smaller influence on voting trends. He won this riding two years ago by the razor thin margin of 95 votes – only by the grace of the local Green Party, whose delusions of grandeur split the left-of-center vote.

Day is acutely aware that far more voters actually preferred other candidates.

So shunning a party headed toward a hard-hard right agenda, hardly seems like a brave or difficult decision for an MLA in a swing riding facing reelection sooner than later. 

Day did the right thing, of course. But, in terms of political survival, what other choice did he really have? And why did he wait so long?

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“Liberal Rush” tricked voters in NDP ridings and exposed an electoral system flaw

“Liberal Rush” tricked voters in NDP ridings and exposed an electoral system flaw

by | May 1, 2025

George Le Masurier photo

“Liberal Rush” tricked voters in NDP ridings and exposed an electoral system flaw

By George Le Masurier

The 2025 federal election turned out pretty much as expected. The Liberals won a strong minority government. The Conservatives swept Alberta and Saskatechen. The NDP lost official status in the “Liberal Rush.” But who could have predicted Pierre Poilievre would be so unpopular in his own riding?

With 168 Liberal seats, seven NDP and one Green, this government looks solid for a whole term. That stability will benefit Canadians as the Mark Carney government deals with Trump and the economic chaos he has caused.

We fortunately escaped the damage to Canada that Poilievre – the “Mini-Me Trump” – would have caused by channeling the US Presidents attacks on education, the CBC and media, clean energy initiatives and more.

Now here comes the “But ….” Despite the positive big picture outcome, this election exposed a glaring vulnerability within our electoral system.

And that vulnerability caused otherwise smart people to forget how our Canadian parliamentary system actually works. Namely: We do not have a proportional representation form of government.

A Canadian majority or strong minority government gives a single party almost dictatorial powers to change and make laws, to decide how to spend our money and to shape our social, environmental and financial futures.

That’s because, like today’s American Congress, our provincial and federal governments vote in a block. If you’re a federal MP or a provincial MLA, you’re expected to vote how your party’s caucus tells you to vote. Exceptions to this rule are rare and usually get you booted out of town.

So it makes sense that when voters go to the polls on election day, they cast their ballots for the party they want to form the government, the party whose values, policies and promises align with their own.

And there’s the problem. What if the party you align with best has no hope of winning your riding? What if there are three parties running candidates in your riding and you like parts of all of them? What if you want to vote for one party in your riding but doing so will result in the election of another party that you detest, that stands for the opposite of everything you value?

Those were the conflicts facing many voters on Vancouver Island this year. And it was the NDP, Liberals and Green parties themselves that squeezed Island voters into this awkward and divisive situation.

When the NDP, Liberals and federal Greens all ran candidates against a single Conservative, the parties forced progressive voters to figure out on their own how the vote would split and where their vote would do the most good.

Sadly, the Liberal party enthusiasm convinced many traditional NDP voters on the Island to buy into the fantasy that a Liberal candidate could win in ridings like North Island-Powell River (NIPR) where they’ve never finished better than third for over half a century.

They sold “The whole country’s going Liberal this year” like snake oil hustlers in the Wild West. It was a hollow promise.

Yes, it’s true that the Liberals got about 12,000 more votes in the North Island-Powell River riding than they did in 2021 – most of those stolen from the NDP.

But they still finished third and accomplished nothing.

The whole push to “Vote Liberal” didn’t help anybody. It didn’t help the Liberal party win the riding. It didn’t help the NDP, which fell about 5,000 votes short. And it won’t help the majority of people living in the riding – especially indigenous people – who will now be represented by somebody they didn’t want and who will be a do-nothing opposition backbencher.

It had, in fact, the opposite effect of what the Liberals intended.

In NIPR, the Liberals, NDP and Greens tallied 47,819 combined votes compared to 30,551 for the Conservative. It should have been a dominant mandate for progressive values: 60.6 percent.

But we still lost. A gift to the Conservatives.

It was the same sad story in Nanaimo and Cowichan. Across the province, this strategy resulted in a gain of four Liberal seats but a loss of 10 NDP seats, for a net loss of six progressive MPs.

Did people get swept by the charm of Mark Carney and think they were voting for him? Canadians don’t elect a prime minister. We elect MPs in ridings and the leader of the party with the most seats becomes our PM.

After this election, the political parties and many individual candidates will take time to reflect on their campaigns and how their strategies correlated with the final results.

Conservatives will try to understand how they lost a 25 point lead in about eight weeks. Pierre Poilievre will reflect on how he lost his seat in Parliament. Political operatives from all parties will try to assess the effect US President Trump had on this election. The NDP will think about its future as a viable federal party.

Voters should take time to reflect, too, on whether their vote choice got the result they wanted. They might also think about which were the informative and trustworthy sources of information they relied on to make those choices, and which were not.

In the election aftermath, there will be a renewed call for electoral reform. Proponents of proportional representation will make another noble attempt, but Ottawa will be wary of such a fundamental change while Trump still has eyes on our natural resources.

The simpler solution is for the three progressive parties on Vancouver Island to embrace the greater good of sustaining and expanding progressive ideals by fielding a single candidate in the next election.

In short, stop fighting among ourselves.

 

 

 

 

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Battle of the North Island riding polls, does it really matter? A prediction

Battle of the North Island riding polls, does it really matter? A prediction

by | Apr 23, 2025

Photo Caption

Battle of the North Island riding polls, does it really matter? A prediction

By George Le Masurier

Heading into the final week of the 2025 Canadian federal election, national polls predict the Mark Carney Liberals have a slight lead over the Pierre Poilievre Conservatives. That means the two federal ridings that include portions of the Comox Valley could make a difference in which party forms our next government.

The fear among progressive-minded voters has always been that one or both of the Courtenay-Alberni and North Island-Powell River ridings will swing Conservative, which would help Poilievre.

But despite this shared goal of keeping Poilievre and his cadre of right-wing Freedom Convoy MAGA-style candidates out of office, progressives are once again so embroiled in fighting each other over small-picture differences that the Conservative candidates don’t even bother to show up for public forums.

Progressive voters have been dealt a difficult and divisive hand. Should you vote for the NDP again or the Liberals? Who has the best chance of overcoming the odds and defeating the Conservatives in our two ridings? I’ve already made my choice known.

Some progressive voters in our ridings are waiting to see which party, Liberal or NDP, is ahead in the polls before casting their vote. The problem is that polling at the riding level is often unreliable.

So now, progressives have found something new to squabble about: which poll of the North Island-Powell River (NIPR) riding is the accurate one? Some polls show the Liberals ahead of the NDP. Others show the NDP with an edge. Who to believe?

The realist (pessimist?) in me says it doesn’t matter. All of the polls show the Conservatives well ahead in NIPR. So, in reality, unless all of the polls are wrong, the outcome was already written from the start when the Greens, Liberals and NDP all fielded candidates.

Three candidates to split progressive voters and a single candidate to get 100 percent of the Conservative voters. Those are bad odds.

That shared goal, that common purpose of defeating the Conservatives on the North Island immediately turned into Mutually Assured Destruction. Flat out MADness, in my view.

 

 

WHEN THE BC LIBERAL and BC Conservative parties merged during last year’s provincial election, I contacted Green Party candidate Arzeena Hamir. I asked if she was concerned about splitting the vote with the NDP now that the small-c conservative vote would no longer be split. She was not concerned, Hamir told me, because the Greens had the dominant campaign. She genuinely believed she would win.

It was magical thinking then and it’s at play again in this federal election. With two strong progressive candidates in NDP Tanille Johnston and Liberal Jennifer Lash, there’s no way on God’s green earth that either one of them will win the riding.

Lash knew this back in 2021 when she wrote a post on the blog “Malcolm Island Post whatever you want” about that year’s federal election. Disclaimer: Mark Worthing reposted a screenshot of Lash’s blog post. It’s a private group, so I have not seen the post first-hand.

In that post, Lash promotes voting for NDP Rachel Blaney for three reasons. First, because the NIPR riding “historically votes NDP or Conservative with the Liberals and other parties not garnering many votes.” Second, Blaney has “done a great job as an MP.” Third, because the NDP “did a good job pushing the Liberals to do more and go further on climate and other important issues.”

Those were good reasons for voting strategically in 2021 and they are still valid today.

So, why did she spin 180 on this issue? One can only conclude that Lash, like Hamir in the provincial election, has succumbed to magical thinking that she can actually win, despite two other progressive candidates and a single Conservative.

I hope I’m totally wrong and that Lash or Johnston wins, but the Conservative vote looks too unified.

All progressive voters, despite their party affiliations, want a Liberal government, majority or minority. But battling each other isn’t a realistic path to achieving it.

 

 

MY ELECTION PREDICTION for NIPR is that the Greens, Liberals and NDP together will get more votes than the Conservatives and lose the riding. And, like new Conservative MLA Brennan Day, Aaron Gunn – the podcaster parachuted into the riding – will go to Ottawa knowing that a majority of voters didn’t want him. But he won’t care.

In the Courtenay-Alberni riding, I think it’s a different story. NDP Gord Johns has earned enough respect from voters to squeak by for another term.

 

 

 

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More from news

Greens dropped ridings to avoid vote splitting … ???

Photo Caption hen the federal debate commission disinvited the Green Party from national debates, its leader, Jonathan Pedneault divulged an election strategy that evidently didn't make its way to North Island-Powell...

Island group urges NDP vote to stop Conservatives

Photo Caption growing coalition of over 140 Vancouver Island residents has called for strategic voting in the North Island-Powell River and Courtenay-Alberni ridings to block the Conservatives and reject Aaron Gunn's...

Greens dropped ridings to avoid vote splitting … ???

Greens dropped ridings to avoid vote splitting … ???

by | Apr 16, 2025

Photo Caption

Greens dropped ridings to avoid vote splitting … ???

By George Le Masurier

When the federal debate commission disinvited the Green Party from national debates, its leader, Jonathan Pedneault divulged an election strategy that evidently didn’t make its way to North Island-Powell River candidate Jessica Wegg.

Nor did the strategy reach Chris Markevich in the Courtenay-Alberni riding.

The commission yesterday said the Greens were banned from participating in the French and English debates because they didn’t meet the requirement of running candidates in 90 percent of the nation’s ridings.

When Pedneault was asked why, he gave a revealing answer. He told the CBC that the party removed candidates for “strategic reasons” to avoid “splitting the progressive vote.”

Yet that’s exactly what Wegg and Markevich are doing in their ridings.

 

 

 

 

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More

“Liberal Rush” tricked voters in NDP ridings and exposed an electoral system flaw

Despite the positive big picture outcome, this election exposed a glaring vulnerability within our electoral system. And that vulnerability caused otherwise smart people to forget how our Canadian parliamentary system actually works. Namely: We do not have a proportional representation form of government. But there is a simple solution.

Greens dropped ridings to avoid vote splitting … ???

Photo Caption hen the federal debate commission disinvited the Green Party from national debates, its leader, Jonathan Pedneault divulged an election strategy that evidently didn't make its way to North Island-Powell...

Island group urges NDP vote to stop Conservatives

Photo Caption growing coalition of over 140 Vancouver Island residents has called for strategic voting in the North Island-Powell River and Courtenay-Alberni ridings to block the Conservatives and reject Aaron Gunn's...

Island group urges NDP vote to stop Conservatives

Island group urges NDP vote to stop Conservatives

by | Apr 13, 2025

Photo Caption

Island group urges NDP vote to stop Conservatives

A  growing coalition of over 140 Vancouver Island residents has called for strategic voting in the North Island-Powell River and Courtenay-Alberni ridings to block the Conservatives and reject Aaron Gunn’s divisive politics.

The coalition says in a new release that they encourage voters to stop the Conservatives by voting for the NDP who are the incumbent party in both ridings and are historically strong on Vancouver Island. This recommendation is backed by independent strategic-voting sites such as votewell.ca and smartvoting.ca.

The release was signed by a diverse group of community members, organizations, and Indigenous leaders from across North Island-Powell River and Courtenay-Alberni ridings.

National media narratives may lead people to assume that voting Liberal will stop the Conservatives. However, this assumption does not reflect the local realities on Vancouver Island. Increased support for the Liberals on Vancouver Island will split the progressive vote. If the Liberals do well this will most likely elect Gunn.

The network encourages Liberal, Green, Conservative, and non-voters from the last election to vote NDP.

In the coming weeks, members of the grassroots network say they will mobilize to get out the vote through door knocking, phone calling, and peer-to-peer engagement.

To get involved, the public can go here, or here.

 

 

 

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