Peter Milobar won’t parachute candidates into ridings for the next provincial election, should he be elected leader of the provincial Conservative party.
Milobar, MLA for Kamloops Centre, stopped at Vernon’s Elks Hall Friday morning, April 10, to meet with about 25 folks gathered to hear him talk.
The question about dropping in candidates from other areas into local ridings came from the floor. It was in reference to 2024 when the B.C. Conservatives parachuted Dennis Geisbrecht, a resident of Kamloops, into the Vernon-Lumby riding race. He lost to incumbent Harwinder Sandhu of the NDP.
Milobar said he wouldn’t drop in candidates if elected leader, but that the decision isn’t up to him, rather a top executive with the party. His answer wasn’t all too convincing to the man who asked the question in the gallery, a man named James.
“I found the last part of the answer a little bit politically fishy, all ‘I don’t really decide.’ You’re the leader. You decide, just like (former leader John) Rustad, who decided to put the guy (Geisbrecht) in, right?” said James (did not want to give his last name). “You can decide, so don’t give all of this ‘I can’t decide’ stuff.”
Milobar, a former three-term Kamloops mayor, took questions on a number of topics, ranging from BC Ferries to property tax reform to the future of BC Hydro.
It was his second visit to the North Okanagan in the leadership race. Milobar was in Lumby back in January.
He is one of five candidates for the position of leader (Iain Black, Caroline Elliott, Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Yuri Fulmer). Warren Hamm dropped out of the race on Sunday, April 12, and has thrown his support behind Fulmer.
Milobar is the most experienced politician to vie for the Conservative leadership so far. He was a Kamloops councillor for six years and mayor for nine.
He has been an MLA since 2017, when he was elected as a member of the BC Liberals, and when he was the Official Opposition House Leader and served as the shadow minister for Indigenous relations as well as the environment.
In a Mainstreet Research poll commissioned by the Milobar campaign in late March, with four weeks left in the leadership campaign, a picture of a clear two-horse race between Milobar and Elliott has been set.
The poll findings say the first choice leader is Elliott, with 21.2 per cent of the votes, just slightly ahead of Milobar (20.8 per cent).
Milobar leads among second choices (9.8 per cent) with Black a close second (9.1 per cent).
When asked who would be most likely to unite the BC Conservative Party and defeat the NDP in the next election, Milobar emerged as the clear frontrunner with 30.6 per cent support, and Elliott in second at 26 per cent.
The Conservative Party of British Columbia will announce its new leader May 30.