250 NEWS EXCLUSIVE: Cummins to Lead Conservatives Into Kelowna Byelection
Saturday, June 8, 2013 @ 6:17 PM
.jpg)
(John Cummins with Tories Terry Rysz, left, and Dan Brooks, right, at PG campaign stop. Photo 250 NEWS)
Prince George, B.C. – The future of the leader of the B.C. Conservative Party in long range terms is up in the air but one thing is certain, John Cummins will be the leader going into the upcoming by-election in Westside-Kelowna.
That’s the Liberal-safe riding in which an unelected Christy Clark plans to run to seek a seat in the legislature after incumbent MLA Ben Stewart announced last week he would step down to give Clark that opportunity. Clark lost to the NDP’s David Eby in Vancouver-Point Grey in last month’s provincial election.
Cummins finished a distant third to Liberal Mary Polak in the riding of Langley in the May 14th election and there had been questions about his continued leadership of the party. The B.C. Conservative Party board met in Vancouver Saturday amid speculation Cummins would offer his resignation, effective immediately. One of the people at that meeting was Dan Brooks, who ran for the Conservatives against incumbent Liberal John Rustad in Nechako Lakes. Rustad won, Brooks came in third.
In an exclusive interview with 250 News, Brooks says “The board was focused on going into the by-election, and John Cummins will be leading us through that by-election. So most of that is just hyped-up talk, speculation.” Asked what happens after the by-election, Brooks says “well that’s his choice after that. We’ll see what he decides.” Asked whether Cummins has given any indication that he’s prepared to step down, Brooks says “it’s a question that we’d rather not talk about. Ultimately what we want to do is we want to focus on this by-election. Because this is an opportunity for the Conservatives to make inroads. There’s no vote splitting fears now in this by-election. And the last thing we want to do is appoint an interim leader, or go leaderless into this, so we’re going to stick with John Cummins for this by-election, no question.”
Brooks says the party’s candidate for the Westside-Kelowna run-off has not yet been selected. “There is a process in place where the constituency association selects the candidate and they have basically initiated that process.”
Brooks says Cummins “basically said he’s going to be there for the by-election and we’ll see what happens. There’s no commitment on the table as to a timeline, so that’s really the only thing I can tell you. We’re focused on the by-election so let’s get through the by-election and then after that we can talk about this.”
Brooks says Cummins did not show up at Saturday’s board meeting with a letter of resignation.
Comments
What ever!!!
I’m not sure why, but every time I see a picture of John Cummins, I think we’re headed for an election . . . IN 1951!
Doesn’t this party realize that it’s a running joke, and mostly because of its current leader??
I predict this will be another embarrassment for the party.
The Liberals, Conservatives, Socreds, Reformers, etc; in BC are all cut from the same cloth.
Christy had a lot of support in the last election from the Federal Conservatives.
Cummins and his cohorts are basically an offshoot of the Federal Conservatives, and their opponents are (your guessed it) Federal Conservatives.
The Liberal party in BC is in some circles referred to as the Coalitionist Government.
There is no party in BC that represents the average citizen.
What we need is a populist movement to form the Government without any ties to any of the established parties. Only then will we be able to start making some much needed changes in this Province.
Will that happen?? Not likely, as we are mired deeply in the mantra of BS baffles brains.
^ you’ll need to be more specific – which party are you talking about?
It would be funny if Christy lost the bye election now would’nt it?
I’d like to see what the Liberals would do, if that were to happen.
metalman.
This is serious? Not a joke, eh? Those people must be made of iron.
“Christy had a lot of support in the last election from the Federal Conservatives”
Everyone likes to support a winner.
Remember one thing, when the federal election is on, which will be before the next BC election, they want her to support “the Harper Government” (loud fanfare in the background as those words are spoken/read). They do not want her to support the Liberals. The support was more their offer than her request, I suspect.
So, let us wait to see what happens between now and October 19, 2015. Maybe the feds will bless us with a few gifts that they will not renege on this time as they did with the $billion over 10 years MPB diversification funding.
C’mon John…You were an embarrassment in the election, don’t do it again…
Now all we need is a poll to say the liberals will win in a landslide. Then people might be unsure of the outcome.
All John was, was an old dog trying to learn some new tricks.
If we were honest with ourselves at all, we would have to admit that he did more to try and make some changes, than most of us, who basically sat on our backsides, and pretended that we were actually involved in the election.
Voter apathy is not restricted those who did not vote, but also to those who voted, but did not have a clue as to who, or what they were voting for.
When the information you use to make a decision to vote is BS, and you are too lazy to seek out the truth, then in essence you to are apathetic.
If we can maintain a thought in our brains for an extended period of time, we should be able to determine if in fact any of the **crap** that the Liberals promised will actually come to fruition. However if we run true to form, we will pay no attention what so ever until the next election.
We already have the President of the Chamber of Commerce stating that the Liberals need to have a hard look at improving the PST, and maybe bringing in a **Made in BC Value Added Tax**.
Hopefully Christy will ignore this type of pressure, however it was these dudes that supported her in the election.
Exclusive? As in no one else could be bothered to listen. Cool.
Listening is the key. Listening and determining what is truth and what is hyperbole is part of the process. Making a squiggly X on a piece of paper once every 4 years, based on nothing more than photo ops, sound bites, and free hot dogs, is probably not going to get the job done.
“…and determining what is truth and what is hyperbole is part of the process.”
Are you assuming that a large number of voters are oblivious to this? How do you know for sure whether a person has made that effort or not before she/he makes the squiggly X on the ballot?
How about not questioning the integrity of those who actually bother to vote and focusing instead on dishonest politicians who get away with making promises they have no intention of keeping, thereby being the perpetuators and root cause of voter apathy?
… The elections in BC and Canada, with all these scandals and corruptions, have turned into a gravy train for the candidates and their friends …
Going back to the subject, the BC conservatives wasted a big opportunity when the BC Liberal MLAs defected and one of them joined their party and they chased him out and they prevented the formation of a new core group around him.
And from the last BC conservative congress under the erratic leadership of Cummins, the BC conservatives have been going down in opinion polls and the presence of federal conservative MPs like stockwell day advertising for BC Liberals didn’t help them either.
Considering the fact that the federal conservatives got the majority of votes in Kelowna, the BC conservatives can pose a threat to Clark’s victory, but not under Cummins’ leadership. As the old saying goes, you cannot teach an old dog new tricks … .
The W. Kelowna by election is an opportunity for a new BC conservative leader to emerge and run against Clark if Cummins resigns now. A game changer will be if one of the MLAs defecting from BC Liberals run against Clark on Conservative ticket there.
Palopu wrote: “Listening and determining what is truth and what is hyperbole is part of the process.”
It took some time on your part, but you finally realized why the election went the way it did. …. ;-)
univ wrote: “Considering the fact that the federal conservatives got the majority of votes in Kelowna, the BC conservatives can pose a threat to Clark’s victory”
I see. :-)
Please remember which federal riding voted federal conservative and reform and alliance and god knows what other ultra right wing party I may have left out from the peace to the southern border. It is more than just Kelowna.
Maybe you have not figured out yet that this is Canada, not the USA. We do not have Democrats and Republicans and their grass roots local support groups who are the steady powers behind the candidate endorsement process from feds, to state, to municipal government. It simply does not work the same way here where vote splitting, allowing a third party to come up the middle, is always a possibility.
The results for Westside-Kelowna were around 11,400 : 5,850 : 2,150.
Give the Conservatives a new leader and a new story and give them a considerable number of new votes as a result which will not come from the NDP supporters. In fact, the NDP may also come out with more votes.
Give a quarter of the votes taken from the BCLibs and ¾ to the Conservative miracle workers, and the NDP miracle workers will have won the seat.
The numbers would look like this if the same number would vote and the Libs would only get half the number they got: 5,700 : 7,275 : 6,425 â¦.. giving the NDP the seat.
It is good that we can all dream a little now and then â¦. ;-)
“Give a quarter of the votes taken from the BCLibs and ¾ to the Conservative miracle workers, and the NDP miracle workers will have won the seat.”
Predictions, predictions, predictions…very interesting!
Look what happened to all the professional paid for predictions: The party won that had been predicted to suffer a landslide defeat.
In this by election, there is no fear of NDP taking over the government and even the NDP candidate winning in W. Kelowna. But we all know what happened last month Clark took her victory in Vancouver for granted or Dix took NDP victory in BC for granted ….
univ wrote: “Clark took her victory in Vancouver for granted”
How do you know that?
Ever heare the expression, “lost the battle, but won the war?”
Her focus had to be on winning a provincial election. Little good winning her seat would have done if she had lost the election of the party to power. She is still Premier and she can still get a seat in order to give her the priviledge of speaking in the Legislature. THAT is nothing new in Canada.
Neither is it new for someone like Dix winning his seat, but not the election of the party.
As I have said before, I am sure Dix would like to be in Clark’s shoes – NDP forming government, him losing his seat, but being Premier elect and looking around to see who might give up his seat for some recognition for doing so.
When she won the by-electtion in May 2011 the votes were also a nail-biter finish, Clark earning 6,729 votes while David Eby had 6,269.
With a small margin like that, I doubt any thinking person would have taken a victory for granted, especially when going into the election the BCLiberals were the underdogs by a large marign according to virtually evey poll.
I would say she was prepared to go down with a loss of the Party as well as the loss of her seat and and the resulting return to private life.
BUT, that did not happen, and all the ankle biters who have no strategic bone in their bodies, still think they can wrestle a victory of sorts back from the grave. ;-)
Gus, it appears that you are gloating that we have a premier who couldn’t get more than 20% of the voters in her own riding to endorse her as premier.
A premier who with less than half of one percent of voters in the province… gets complete power like that of a dictator, and yet doesn’t even win her own seat.
Gus that is not something to gloat about. It in fact is something to feel shame for as we are a province that shows our democracy to be nothing better than an emperor with no cloths… a fools process in legitimacy for unaccountable power… times are good so people go with the flow (especially so in West Kelowna) is the best spin we can put on the shape of our perverted form of democracy.
Best case scenario for this bi-election would be for voter turn out to increase to historical levels in a ballot that actually counts, and for the premier sent back to the private life so that the good people of BC can finally have some reflection on the state of our democracy. We need a say in how the province can reform the system to ensure we never again have to endure an unelected premier holding all the political power in our democracy.
Don’t underestimate the greater majority of people who value a representative democracy over a party proletariat endorsement of unelected partisan power.
IMO we need a strong free enterprise independent to challenge not only the premier and her unelected power, but also a champion for real democratic reform that puts the power back into our democracy at the riding level.
Palopu wrote: “Listening and determining what is truth and what is hyperbole is part of the process.”
It took some time on your part, but you finally realized why the election went the way it did. …. ;-)
—————————
lol…..yes, don’t throw the baby out with the bath water! ;)
” Don’t underestimate the greater majority of people who value a representative democracy over a party proletariat endorsement of unelected partisan power.”
Truth. Wtg Eagleone but patience. As grandma always says, there’s more than one way to “skin a cat”, and you’re not seeing the whole picture, imo. lol
Don’t lecture me eagleone ….. instead learn something about election strategy and then learn something about the governance system in BC and Canada.
Anyone who wants to vote for the “governor” (AKA Premier) of the province and the “president” (AKA Prime Minister) of the country, work on getting a system like that of the USA in place.
Simple!
In the meantime, those in government and those who want to be in government work with the existing rules the best they can. It is called tradition.
Speaking of tradition, the tradition in the past has been for those party leaders, whether in government and even opposition who lost their onw seat to be able to access a by-election and other parties to virtually stand aside.
The only party that is apparently ready to follow that “gentleman’s” tradition is the Green Party.
I thought you studied history and government, eagleone. If you did, you must have been away that day. ;-)
“free enterprise” …. enterprise costs lots of money …. it is not free.
We have no Libertarian party in BC, let alone enough people who understand the notion.
Allrighty than smart guy… your advice is just to shut up and look the other way while you gloat about coming out on the winning side of a degenerate system of democracy that fewer and fewer people are willing to endorse. Gotcha then, you are on the other side of an ethical electoral system and you would like to call those that are not… as ignorant and in need of just learning more from the master.
I just think like many other Canadians that in a Westminster form of government one should first be an elected member before they can become premier and appoint a cabinet to govern with the legitimacy of an elected leadership.
The legislature should be about elected MLA’s and not about the power of party appointments over the elected legislature.
The liberals won the most seats so they should have a leadership race from those that were elected and I would not complain one bit if the premier elect was actually elected.
So its just alright then that we can have a candidate that lost the election, can form the cabinet and run as premier elect and yet members of the opposition that were in fact elected can have no part in the powers of government other than to question the unelected premier. Thats reality folks.
The truth hurts does it Gus?
Do I really need to school you Gus?
Free enterprise, is not about things being free, it is not free markets (as in free of regulation)…. rather free enterprise is short for the freedom to have equal opportunity based on merits in the pursuit of private enterprise (this often requires anti monopoly regulation and public infrastructure).
If you do not understand the basics of free enterprise then how is it you think you can lecture on the traditions of our economic and political system? Obviously you have huge gaps in your understanding… and that is where I can help :)
You speak of imposed tradition by the likes of political parties with a vested interest in keeping real democracy from asserting its rights. I don’t agree that the interests of the parties coincides with the interests of representative democracy.
We have a difference of views as to what is acceptable. One is a view of an elitist mentality that is a closed system of party insiders (you either play the game or you don’t belong in government), and mine is a few that we are a free people who expect our vote to actually count for something in a representative democracy.
One view facilitates bad and corrupted governments, and the other enables transparent and accountable governments… something as simple as only elected members being allowed to hold positions of cabinet.
“expect our vote to actually count for something”
It does …. for one out of millions in a province and country and 10s of thousands in a riding…… you are only one .. and those on here are only a few …..
who elected you to represent everyone??????
gus: “Don’t lecture me eagleone ….. “
The lecturer becomes the lecturee… and apparently doesn’t like it all that much.
To say that Ms. Clark does not have a mandate to lead the province is bunk. A majority of those who took the time to make their mark on the ballot did so on the vision of the future of our province going forward presented by the party leaders.
This election shows it even more than most by how the polls began to shift to the liberals the moment the writ was dropped. Dix crawled out from where ever he was hiding since being elected party leader and the people did not like what they saw or heard from him.
I would venture to guess that only a small minority of voters in any riding have heard what a local candidate has to say or where they stand on a particular issue. More people would have watched the leaders debate than local debates, so in essence placing an X beside Shirley Bonds or Sherry O is a proxy for Clark or Dix.
Comments for this article are closed.