Editor’s note: Interviews for this story were conducted prior to the withdrawal of BC United from the provincial election, as revealed on August 28.
Two months out from the next provincial election, there are three major party candidates nominated in the West Vancouver-Sea to Sky riding — equal to the total number that ran in 2020.
Pique checked in with all the candidates (so far) to ask about the campaign, the polling, and the vibe in the riding.
Of the last round’s frontrunners, incumbent MLA Jordan Sturdy of BC United (formerly BC Liberal) is not running again, and as of August 28, there will be no BC United candidate after the party agreed to withdraw in a seismic development for BC politics. Prior to their withdrawal, regular check-ins over the course of months didn’t yield much in the way of progress. Meanwhile, the Greens are running Jeremy Valeriote a second time after he came within 60 votes of securing the party’s first riding not on Vancouver Island last time around.
West Vancouver-Sea to Sky is shaping up to be a riding to watch in 2024 because of potential vote-splitting.
On the centre-left, the NDP have come third in results in the last two elections, having fallen behind the Greens both times, effectively allowing the then-BC Liberals to hold on with 43 and 37 per cent in 2017 and 2020 respectively, while the combined NDP and Green vote was 55 and 62 per cent.
In 2024 however the NDP had a province-wide opportunity to pull ahead thanks to the rise of the BC Conservative Party to the right of BC United, securing and then holding on to a significant polling lead over their centre-right compatriots and locking in to second place behind the NDP provincially. The rise of the Conservatives ultimately led to the demise of BC United entirely.
How that development plays out in West Vancouver-Sea to Sky is hard to gauge given a lack of local polling, but as things stand two months out from the election, the BC Conservatives have nominated a candidate, and BC United are gone. It was quite a turnaround: When he visited Squamish in March, opposition leader Kevin Falcon told Pique that he had “a personal and vested interest in making sure that [BC United] continue to hold [West Vancouver-Sea to Sky].”
Pique spoke to the three candidates that have skin in the game, starting with the only candidate that is a repeat on 2020: The Green Party’s Jeremy Valeriote.
For his part, Valeriote noted the complexity of the province-wide polling, but added he was very confident the Greens were the front runners locally.
“Every riding is different, and the picture is more complicated than the polling would suggest given the 4-way split in the vote,” he said in an email.
“In [West Vancouver-Sea to Sky] I’m the frontrunner based on proven BC Green support. So if the last election was rerun with the new riding boundaries, I would win convincingly.”
Valeriote is not wrong: As noted in previous coverage, the redistribution after the last election knocked a large-enough swathe of West Vancouver out of the riding that if the election were a carbon copy under the new borders, he would win. The neighbourhood that was moved into a neighbouring riding was West Bay, which historically was a bastion of BC Liberal support. Without it, the centre-right vote is diminished in the riding which has returned varied results from top to bottom. In 2020, the Greens were strong in Pemberton, Whistler and Bowen Island, and almost completely overran Squamish which in previous years had been the centre for NDP support in the riding.
But, it’s not 2017 or 2020, but 2024. It has now been seven years of NDP government, and Valeriote took aim.
“I’ve been talking with people across the Sea to Sky since 2020, and hearing similar messages - on housing, affordability, healthcare and climate change - because the BC NDP has failed to address our biggest challenges.
“As an environmental engineer and former councillor I talk about evidence-based solutions, such as regional transit, which will help affordability, relieve congestion and reduce emissions.”
Asked about the new dynamic offered by the rise of the BC Conservative Party, Valeriote said he was staying focused on the Green message.
“We are happy to debate with other candidates - and will point out to voters that there’s no difference on key issues between the other main parties. So for instance I’m the only candidate opposed to Woodfibre LNG.”
The NDP candidate for the riding, Jen Ford, is a newcomer to provincial-level partisan politics, but has long been involved in the local and regional scene. She threw her hat into the ring earlier in 2024, telling Pique at the time that the time she had spent working closely with the NDP government had inspired her to get involved. At the time, the NDP was well ahead in polling and appeared to be on track for re-election, and Ford spoke of the benefits of West Vancouver-Sea to Sky electing an MLA that would serve in government, rather than in opposition or as a third party.
Two months out from the election, polling has tightened significantly, and Ford offered the customary response to reporter questions on the matter.
“I think the only poll that really matters is October 19,” she said in an interview.
“It’s certainly interesting to see where people are resonating with the message that’s out there,” she said, noting that it appeared that the options before voters appeared more polarized than before—between what she called cuts as offered by the Conservatives, and supporting services as offered by the NDP.
That said, she added that voters weren’t fully engaged yet, which makes sense as the writs are yet to drop for the election.
“What I am hearing in the community is that people are still on summer vacation mode and the election isn’t really landing yet.”
Even so, Ford added that many of the issues she was hearing about were the same as before: Housing, healthcare and childcare.
“Those issues haven’t changed from when I first started this campaign, and I think that they are still very much in the hearts and minds of the communities that I’m speaking to.”
The newest candidate to hit the ground is the BC Conservative pick for the riding: Yuri Fulmer. A successful businessman with a lot of time spent in philanthropy, Fulmer is the global chairman of United Way Worldwide, and serves as chancellor of Capilano University.
Though he lives just outside the riding, in an interview with Pique he joked that the redistribution was to blame.
“Now I fall about 112 feet outside the riding. I could throw a rock and hit it”, he laughed. Many of his business interests are in the riding, and as Capilano University spreads into Squamish, his work brings him north more often than not.
Fulmer might be well-acquainted with the riding, but the party he represents is an unknown locally. He said that he had spent the first weeks of his campaign pounding the pavement to sell change, and in his words, “to make sure I didn’t have a preconceived notion of what the issues in the corridor were.”
What he had learned was similar to what his Green and NDP competitors said, but he stressed that all concerns were stemming from affordability, and that was flowing into everything else.
“Affordability resonates with everybody in the riding. It’s issue one, two, three and four. There’s a big gap before there’s discussion of other issues. If you can’t put food on the table you can’t afford to live, and other issues become secondary.”
The other issues were still prominent however, being healthcare and regional transportation—which Fulmer noted appeared to be a sign the government had “forgotten” the corridor from the transportation point of view.
“There is no way for people who live in Pemberton … to access public transportation to get to work. Same for people who live in Squamish and work in Whistler, same for people who live in all of these communities and need to go to Vancouver for passports or medical appointments or to go to the airport. Or if you want to reduce your environmental footprint and don’t want to drive, there is no way to do that.
“[Hwy 99] is terribly dangerous, and the more cars we get off the road and the more people we can put in mass transportation, the knock-on effects are terrific. Reducing environmental footprint, less stress on people, less commute time. This is to me something we need to prioritize.”
The polling question
As of late August, polling across the province has shown a tightening between the two frontrunners, being the NDP and the Conservatives, while the Green Party and BC United have stayed the same and fallen behind (and then died completely) respectively.
Yuri Fulmer is on the ground and campaigning hard to take the mantle of representing the riding from the fading BC United Party, taking up space on the centre-right while BC United ceded ground.
BC United’s nomination challenges were well-covered: They had lost sitting MLAs and aspiring candidates to the Conservatives, and while well ahead of the the Greens, BC United was the least-prepared of all major parties with only 57 candidates named as of August 19 —out of a required 93 to run a full slate. Those 57 are now moot, with the party folding up its tent. The particulars of that process are yet to be revealed as of writing.
Outgoing MLA Jordan Sturdy told Pique media he wasn’t involved in recruiting to replace him, while none of the names bandied about and shared with Pique as potential candidates came to fruition. One rejected candidate went as far as share their concern with the BC United processes on a local social media page, remarking that the party was “imploding” in recounting their experience going through vetting before being passed over, in what turned out to be an astute observation.
All that to say: The incumbent party never got around to naming a candidate, while the party eating into their polling numbers provincially has come to play in West Vancouver-Sea to Sky.
For his part, Fulmer said he was about winning one vote at a time—and his answers to questions at the time suggested he was focused on the NDP and the Greens, rather than BC United.
“I take nothing for granted,” he said about the polling.
“What I’m not hearing from people is that they want four more years of the NDP. I’m hearing very clearly from folks that they need change. … if you want change, there are only two other alternatives on the ballot. Deepest respect to the Green candidate, the Greens have zero chance of forming government, and zero chance of forming opposition. If you want a meaningful voice for change in the legislature and you are dissatisfied in our riding with the NDP, the Conservatives are the way forward.”
Fulmer said that he wasn’t hearing much in the way of interest in the Green platform, heading off any attempts by that party to claim climate change as its sole domain.
“Because we haven’t released [the Conservative climate platform] it’s pretty tough to be critical of it at this point. I haven’t met a person in the Conservative Party who isn’t worried about climate change, including my boss John Rustad. He’s from the north, just outside Vanderhoof, he knows full well the impact of climate change as well. I think we’re all very aware of what has happened in our communities.”
Likewise, he waved away efforts by the Greens to keep campaigning on LNG by distinguish themselves as the only party against LNG exports, saying that that decision “had been taken”, and he supported the role of the Squamish Nation in approving Woodfibre LNG.
Part of NDP candidate Jen Ford’s pitch to voters in throwing her hat into the ring was the benefit of electing a representative that would be in government vs. an MLA on the cross bench.
When she first announced earlier in 2024, the NDP were cruising to victory while the two centre-right parties jockeyed for second place. Months later, her pitch stays the same, and interestingly, Fulmer said he agreed with that take, just flipped to support the Conservatives, of course.
“I think the people in West Vancouver-Sea to Sky do want to put somebody in government, and I think the question for them is: How has the government of the last seven years gone for you? If you think you are incredibly well off under the NDP of the last seven years, if you think you’re prosperous and your family are prosperous, then I guess that might be the vote you want to cast. If you don’t think you’re prospering, I’m not sure putting an MLA into the same government that’s caused you not to prosper is the right way to go.”
For Ford, the Conservatives being on the field didn’t change her approach.
“This is a big role to fill and I bring the experience that I have and it speaks for itself. Who else enters the race doesn’t change anything about what I bring to the campaign.”
Asked about a lack of a BC United candidate to spar with, Ford didn’t sound concerned. At the time, BC United were still in the race, but fading in relevance.
“Looking how their party is [was] positioned, and are seeing candidates leaving their team… it’s not really surprising that they haven’t found someone yet … They’re tracking at what is it, 10 per cent right now? I think that sort of speaks for itself.”
While the NDP and the Conservatives battle it out in the province-wide polling, West Vancouver-Sea to Sky is shaping up to potentially be the Green Party’s best chance at representation. Given how close Valeriote got in 2020, he’s bringing that confidence into 2024.
“Over the last 20 years Green support has been steadily growing right across the riding, whereas the BC Conservatives have only fielded candidates twice,” he said.
“They were pretty much moribund provincially until John Rustad was kicked out of the BC Liberals for denying climate change, and became the BCC leader.”
Valeriote did some legwork for BC United too, in pointing out that the provincial party was not the party of Pierre Poilievre.
“Voters will learn that they are not the same as the federal Conservative Party, but simply riding on their coat-tails.”
While there will not be a BC United candidate to interview, incumbent MLA, Jordan Sturdy previously told Pique that he believed at the time that BC United was the party with substance, and with the dropping of the writ, voters would take a closer look at the Conservatives, and reconsider their vote.
“When we have to start talking about what the policies are, there really isn’t a lot there with the Conservatives … I think when people start paying a bit more attention and when there is an all candidates debate, then you’ll start to see the leadership in person, and start to see a more robust discussion about policy and direction.
“Kevin [Falcon] has a lot of experience and proven leadership. From a policy perspective, we’re on the right track.”
As it turns out, voters won’t get the opportunity to find out.
While internal party selection processes are opaque, Pique regularly checked in with the party to gauge progress since party leader Kevin Falcon said that they would be naming a candidate within 45 days of a March 7 interview. That deadline passed with no news from the party, and in May the party’s director of communications told Pique that the party was still working through nominations across the province and would let media know when it had someone for West Vancouver-Sea to Sky. In mid-August a rejected candidate vented their concerns with the party on a local social media group after three months of vetting, while another query to the party from Pique went unanswered as of writing.
Whistler area voters will get a closer look at all the candidates running to represent West Vancouver-Sea to Sky at an all-candidates forum co-hosted by the Whistler Chamber, Arts Whistler, and Pique Newsmagazine, to be held on October 1 in Whistler.
The provincial election will be held on or before October 19, 2024.
