Two new MLA’s will be voted in to represent vacant ridings Vancouver-Mount Pleasant and Langford-Juan de Fuca after voters have their last chance to cast their ballots on Saturday, June 24.
former premier John Horgan held the Langford riding since 2005 before he resigned on March 31 this year.
Melanie Mark, a former BC NDP MLA and advanced education and tourism minister vacated her position following her recent diagnoses of attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder.
Vancouver riding by-election candidates have been announced for the BC Conservatives, BC NDP, BC United and BC Greens Party.
The BC Conservative candidate Karin Litzcke was announced May 20. She’s a long-time Strathcona resident and says she is running for MLA because the children need a advocate for better education policies and to help restore public safety.
Litzcke completed a MBA at the Ivey Business School at the University of Western Ontario but describes herself more importantly as a mom fighting back against wokeness in BC’s schools.
Litzcke has a history of being a strong proponent of parental rights in schools and launched a court action in 2012 “to have the legal rights of parents recognized in a litigation between the teachers’ union and the government.”
Litzcke aims to bring back evidence based teaching and common sense to the schools and remove the promoting of divisive political and social ideologies from within government institutions including schools.
“BC schools should be focused on teaching math, science, reading, writing, and Canadian history, etc. (This is common sense!)” Litzcke wrote in an email to BC Conservative supporters.
Wendy Hayko won the candidate nomination for the BC Green party which was announced on May 26. According to the BC Green’s website Hayko is a “fierce advocate” for emergency preparedness and response citing “climate emergency” as one of her main focus points.
On May 19, 2023, Jackie Lee was announced as the BC United candidate. His biography on the BC United website describes him as a local business owner with a “devotion to family values and community building” and has collaborated with the Vancouver Police Department “to make Chinatown safer and cleaner.”
The BC NDP announced Indigenous rights leader and longtime climate activist Joan Phillip as their candidate. Phillip has fought against energy in British Columbia by taking aim at Trans Mountain pipeline which supplies 60% of the gasoline to the Metro Vancouver area and fought against Site C dam which is supposed to provide much needed hydro electric energy to fulfill increasing demand for electricity.
The BC Conservatives BC NDP, BC United and have announced their candidates for the Langford-Juan de Fuca riding
The BC Greens announce in April that healthcare advocate and founder of Canada Pacific Health Care Matters Society Camille Curri will be running as its candidate.
Elena Lawson, a advocate for autism, is running for BC United. She co-founded the Children’s Autism Federation of BC and was named a candidate on May 10.
The NDP candidate, Ravi Parmar, declared he would be running on April 12. Parmar is a school board trustee for Sooke SD62.
Mike Harris, a builder and real estate agent from Langford, was selected as the BC Conservative Party’s candidate on April 20.
