Tuesday February 6, 2024 | COBBLE HILL, BC
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
In the newly-boundaried riding of Juan de Fuca-Malahat the BC Conservatives will be running Dr Marina Sapozknikov as their candidate in the fall 2024 provincial election.
The family doctor who operates a practice in Cobble Hill says she is running “because it’s time to get serious about BC’s future”.
As stated in a news release today, Sapozknikov says she chose the BC Conservatives because “the other three shared the same policies which have created the problems we see in BC today”. However, there might be many in the BC NDP, BC United and BC Green parties who might disagree that they ‘share’ the same policies.
Sapozknikov was nominated by the BC Conservatives back in November 2023 to run in the riding that is largely rural but with Sooke (population nearly 16,000) smack in the middle as a growing urbanizing town.
Party momentum:
The Conservative Party of BC is led by John Rustad, a former BC United (BC Liberal) MLA. The Conservative Party of BC currently shows second in the polls as to the voter choice in BC, aiming to give the majority government BC NDP a run for their money.
First out of the gate:
Sapozknikov is early out of the gate for the October 2024 election cycle. The BC NDP, BC United, and BC Greens have yet to announce their candidates for Juan de Fuca-Malahat.
The electoral area name of Juan de Fuca-Malahat is new for 2024 (Juan de Fuca for the last two election cycles has been bundled with Langford) as are the boundaries (includes Sooke, Juan de Fuca, Metchosin and Malahat). The voter population is estimated at 44,980.
The boundary adjustment to create Juan de Fuca-Malahat is population-based, and is part of a trio of changes in west shore provincial electoral area boundaries; the other two new riding names and areas are Esquimalt-Colwood (formerly Esquimalt-Metchosin) and Langford-Highlands (formerly Langford-Juan de Fuca).
The current MLA for the riding area called Cowichan Valley is BC Green Leader Sonia Furstenau who announced January 31 that she will be shifting to run in Victoria-Beacon Hill in 2024.
Economy, business and energy:
A primary BC Conservatives campaign theme will be around the economy and small business. Affordable and accessible energy is also mentioned.
Sapozknikov claims that the BC Conservatives are ‘the only party that advocates for prevention and rehabilitation’ when it comes to the drug crisis; she says that “enabling self-destruction is not care” (as a pushback against safe supply).
Townhalls:
Townhalls will be held by Sapozknikov in three locations this month:
- Shirley – February 13
- Cobble Hill – February 22
- Sooke – February 27
Social media is being used by the Sapozknikov campaign, including Facebook and X (at @MSapozhnik9106).
===== RELATED:
Furstenau takes BC Green fight to downtown Victoria (February 1, 2024)
Three provincial electoral areas for west shore (April 18, 2023)
===== ABOUT ISLAND SOCIAL TRENDS:
Island Social Trends posts local, regional and provincial news analysis daily at IslandSocialTrends.ca as well as biweekly in print (Premium subscribers receive a PDF of the print edition by email).
Island Social Trends began mid-2020 during the pandemic, in the footsteps of its predecessor West Shore Voice News (weekly in print 2014-2020) which was previously Sooke Voice News (weekly print 2011-2013).
Founder and editor for that entire series of news publications is Mary P Brooke. Ms Brooke now reports with the BC Legislative Press Gallery. She was nominated in 2023 for a Jack Webster Foundation journalism award for serving her community through journalism.