Frequently asked questions

I understand the concern. In 2024, Vernon-Lumby was decided by 476 votes. The NDP took 11,837, the Conservative Party of BC took 11,361, and Kevin Acton (Unaffiliated) took 4,266.[1] People here remember that.

The question is whether the Conservative Party of BC will actually do what is needed: one set of laws for everyone, an end to identity politics, and significant reductions in government spending. The Conservative Party of BC has spent this term on leadership fights. In December 2025, after a majority of the caucus withdrew its support, the party board declared John Rustad no longer leader, and he announced his resignation on December 4[2][3]. Kerry-Lynne Findlay was elected leader on May 30, 2026, and resigned on September 20, 2026, less than four months later[4][5]. The current leader, Lorne Doerkson, was appointed on an interim basis on September 21, 2026; he was first elected in 2020 as a BC Liberal MLA (the party later renamed itself BC United) and joined the BC Conservatives in 2024[6]. It isn’t a good record, and I have no confidence that they will do what is necessary to encourage the private sector and expand the BC tax base.

This election is interesting because we have more options this time than we have had in the past. On the left, we have the Green Party as an option, and on the right, we have OneBC. I encourage people to vote for the platform that you actually want to have implemented and stop worrying about vote splitting.

Ideally we would have a minority government where parties are forced to cooperate across party lines in order to create balanced legislation and regulations. It would be nice to avoid the tribalism and groupthink that occurs within the big parties, and counteract the practice of bad bills being passed due to party loyalty.

No. We accept what the records show. Some children suffered sexual abuse and physical abuse in residential schools. Other children died from disease, accidents, fires, poor nutrition, and bad housing.[1] Those deaths are documented. What has not been proven is the claim that students were purposely killed and their bodies hidden in unmarked graves.

In Pine Creek, Manitoba, ground-penetrating radar detected 14 anomalies in the basement of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows Catholic Church, on the site of the former Pine Creek Residential School. In 2023, an archeology team excavated the basement. They found old nails, glass, rocks, layers of ash, ceramic pieces, and some animal bone, but no human remains.[2] The problem with ground penetrating radar is that it will trigger an anomaly for all sorts of variation in the terrain. No one knows what is actually there until it is dug up.

The Kamloops First Nation band received millions to research, locate, and document missing children and burial sites. It has been 5 years and none of the 215 anomalies have been excavated. We have a right to demand accountability for our tax dollars and to ask for evidence for the accusations that have been made.

OneBC stands for equal treatment under the law for everyone. OneBC stands for liberty and the ability for people to live the way they wish as long as they are not trampling on the rights of others to do the same. LGBTQ+ enjoy the same legal, tax, and employment protections as anyone else and OneBC is not taking any of that away.

My concern is with classroom content on sexuality and gender, and with parents’ ability to know what their children are taught. The OneBC platform commits to “Remove SOGI-123 and politicized content from classrooms” and to “Institute a Parental Bill of Rights guaranteeing informed consent and classroom transparency for parents of minor-age students.” SOGI 123 is a resource to be used at the discretion of the teacher and that might be referenced in any grade or class. It teaches that all family structures and sexual orientations are equally valid and that gender identity is a spectrum instead of binary. While parents can opt out of the days when anatomy and sexual reproduction are covered in class for a particular grade, there is no opting out of SOGI 123 because it is intended to be woven throughout the curriculum. Some of the SOGI 123 resource books available in the elementary school libraries are considered by many parents to be pornography and not at all appropriate for that age. Parents have the right to be concerned about what their children are being taught.

Compelled speech is the related injustice. Criticizing and expressing concerns about the SOGI 123 resource should not expose a person to prosecution. Barry Neufeld was ordered to pay an astronomical $750,000 by the Human Rights Tribunal over public statements in his role as a school trustee about the SOGI 123 resource.[1] I feel this was a terrible miscarriage of justice and has only served to put a chill on free speech and furthered our descent into tribal identity politics.

The tax cuts will happen in conjunction with expense cuts. When government waste is found and eliminated, there will be less tax expenditures so there can be a reduction in tax revenue while also working towards a balanced budget.

Since health care is the largest part of the BC budget, a top priority for the next government must be connecting improvements in personal care outcomes to every tax dollar spent. Similarly, the second-largest component is education, and the public system must ensure its graduates are competent and fit for the needs of businesses in BC.

Over the longer term, as regulations are streamlined to create certainty and fairness, investors will see a level playing field and be more interested in working in BC. Increasing private-sector jobs and exports is the only route to a sustainable increase in government revenue. We cannot tax our way to prosperity.

The basic role of government is to protect its citizens, punish the evildoer, and make fair and just laws that do not favour one group over another but create an even playing field that allows everyone to thrive.

Government builds the infrastructure to allow the economy to grow, and provides support for families and children so that we will have a future generation. Government also has an interest in preserving knowledge and history as well as protecting parkland and the environment for the enjoyment and flourishing of its people.

Government should also remain neutral. It is the referee in the game, making sure that all players play according to the rules. When it administers justice, it is not supposed to show favouritism. The old statues showed justice wearing a blindfold with balanced scales. The justice system should simply be interested in assessing the evidence, giving a fair hearing, determining guilt or innocence, and making appropriate restitution to the injured party.

DRIPA is the 2019 statute that writes the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into provincial law. Section 3 orders the government to make B.C.’s laws consistent with that declaration. Section 7 lets Cabinet sign an agreement that hands a statutory decision to joint control, or that requires a First Nation’s consent before the decision can be made.

Eskay Creek Mine was the first example worked out in practice. Skeena Resources bought the old site in 2020 to rebuild it and get the mine running again, but could not get its environmental assessment certificate without the consent of the Tahltan First Nation. Skeena finally negotiated a deal where the band got $40 million up front with $10,000 going to each member, $81 million in shares, and about $210 million in expected royalties. The band put no money into the project, but is able to enjoy the profits simply because it lies within their traditional territory.

The problem with DRIPA is that it creates an open-ended consent toll in order for a company to do a project on Crown land if that Crown land happens to be part of what a tribe claims as traditional territory. There are no set limits to the payment and no limits to the time that First Nations groups can hold it up as part of the consent process. It creates such uncertainty that no mining or forestry company is going to want to invest in any significant projects in this province until DRIPA is repealed.

Cost overruns on some major projects are as follows:

• Surrey-Langley SkyTrain budget rose from $3.94 billion in 2022 to $6 billion in 2024, an increase of 52%
• Replacement for George Massey Tunnel rose from $4.15 billion in 2021 to $8.5 billion in 2026 along with a delay in completion, an overall increase of 105%. This came after cancelling the initial plan to build a bridge in 2017.
• The new Surrey hospital and cancer centre rose from $1.66 billion to $2.88 billion and the opening is delayed by 3 years. Overall increase is 73% above initial budget.

One of the reasons there are major cost overruns and difficulty finding labour for these projects is because the NDP requires that all workers join one of 19 specific unions via BC Infrastructure Benefits. This requirement deliberately restricts competition and reduces bidders because many workers do not want to join those unions, nor do companies want their employees to be part of those unions. Those unions also happen to be allies of the NDP and while they are restricted from donating directly to the party per the 2017 rule change, they still run large third party election advertising to encourage members and others to vote NDP.

Broken promises include:

• The 2024 NDP platform included a promised $1000 rebate to each middle-class or low income household ($500 rebate to individuals). The NDP not only did not pay any rebate, the latest budget for 2026 raised taxes on the lowest tax bracket from 5.06% to 5.6%.
• The 2024 NDP platform said that everyone on the Health Connect Registry would be matched with a family doctor by the end of 2025. There are still 344,088 people on the registry, including myself.
• The 2024 NDP platform promised free public transit to seniors in non-peak hours. So far, nothing has been implemented.