Sunday July 21, 2024 | SOOKE, BC
Political analysis by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
The Juan de Fuca-Malahat ballot for the October 19, 2024 provincial election is now filled by candidates of the four major parties, now that the BC NDP have announced their candidate: Dana Lajeunesse.
For a while now there have been three candidates in the newly-boundaried riding. Dr Marina Sapozknikov announced her BC Conservatives candidacy in November 2023, David Evans was confirmed as the BC Green candidate in mid-May, and Herb Haldane’s BC United candidacy was announced in June.
What seems like a lag-time in the BC NDP announcing their candidate in Juan de Fuca-Malahat has very likely been to allow the current MLA for the area, Ravi Parmar, to wrap up as much business in the area as possible (including Sooke up to Port Renfrew) before he shifts to running in Langford-Highlands (where he is better known). In the last few elections the riding that bridged these areas has been Langford-Juan de Fuca (which included both Sooke and Highlands, and also Metchosin in some election cycles).
Dana Lajeunesse emerges victorious:
The BC NDP candidate for Juan de Fuca-Malahat is Dana Lajeunesse, as announced yesterday. The party describes Lajeunesse as a third-generation resident of Sooke and twice elected to Sooke council (in 2019 in a by-election, and in the regular municipal election cycle in 2022). He has eight years of professional experience in the forest industry, followed by 24 years as a Mechanical Engineering Technologist.
Any other contenders for the BC NDP Juan de Fuca-Malahat candidacy, with respect, probably didn’t have much of a chance. Lajeunesse has long been favoured and positioned by the party to take on this new role.
It still seems strange to not have the former MLA around in the Sooke/Langford region; former Premier John Horgan (now Canada’s Ambassador to Germany) was MLA for the region from 2005 to 2023 (the riding went through several name changes during those years). Among several legacy points of Horgan’s time in BC politics is his artful political craft in putting Vancouver Island and more distinctly the west shore onto the provincial political map.
Before Horgan, few people beyond Greater Victoria had heard of Sooke or Langford (Horgan has lived in Langford for decades but he loved the energy and people-first energy that abounds in Sooke). Keeping the Sooke vibe alive in provincial politics seems important to the BC NDP, if only for legacy’s sake.
Parmar has spent the last year since his June 2023 by-election win in Langford-Juan de Fuca) steadily working his way through most of the people and organizations who he believes will help him get re-elected this fall, including in Sooke. Parmar’s X social media feed has been a steady stream of his photo ops with the presumed ‘who’s who’ of the west shore, Sooke and Port Renfrew.
With Horgan and Parmar behind him, these are big shoes for Lajeunesse to fill though the party will no doubt ably support him with their strong well-organized ground-game toward a win in the October 19 provincial election.
Lajeunesse had had some big ideas. In his 2022 re-election campaign, He proposed that there be a Customs Office on the Sooke waterfront, so that Sooke becomes a port of entry for visitors from around the world as arriving by ship.
In 2021, he had initiated a community event that was labeled Celebrate Sooke, in the hopes of revitalizing the spirit that gave birth to All Sooke Day in 1934 which began as a community picnic and grew, in its heyday (hosting around 14,000 visitors and Logging Sports Competitors from around the world).
Lajeunesse uses a wheelchair having been injured in a logging accident many years ago. He is married to digital marketer and former president of the Sooke Philharmonic Society, Kim (Liggins) Lajeunesse.
Campaign begins:
Lajeunesse is dedicated to economic development that is diversified, sustainable, and provides people the opportunity to be gainfully employed close to home and family, the party said in their July 20 news release.
The new Juan de Fuca-Malahat riding essentially finds the urbanizing municipality of Sooke at its core. Three of the four Juan de Fuca-Malahat candidates — Evans, Haldane and Lajeunesse — are well known in the Sooke area, while Sapozknikov has built her community contacts in the east side of the riding (Cobble Hill is her base).
Given the new ‘capital city’ status of Sooke in the west shore area beyond Langford, it’s notable that long-time Sooke Mayor Maja Tait will possibly be operating on the broader federal scale. Tait is the federal NDP candidate for Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke; a by-election in Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke is expected soon (as soon as the current MP, Randall Garrison, announces his early retirement), possibly in November (to avoid voter confusion during the provincial campaign phase in September up to October 19).
===== ABOUT THE WRITER:
Mary P Brooke is a media publisher based in the west shore of south Vancouver Island. Her journalism is through a socioeconomic lens with political analysis.
As editor of Island Social Trends, Mary P Brooke posts daily at IslandSocialTrends.ca and produces a biweekly print/PDF newspaper. Premium digital subscriptions include biweekly PDF and breaking news links by text).
Publications and journalism by Mary P Brooke leading up to Island Social Trends: MapleLine Magazine (quarterly 2008-2010), Sooke Voice News (weekly print 2011-2013), and West Shore Voice News (weekly print and PDF 2014-2020).
===== RELATED:
- Juan de Fuca-Malahat race heating up in Sooke (June 29, 2024)
- BC United picks Herb Haldane for Juan de Fuca-Malahat race (June 28, 2024)
- Electoral momentum in Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke (June 21, 2024)
- Sooke businessman David Evans now BC Green candidate for Juan de Fuca – Malahat (May 11, 2024)
- Three west shore ridings heating up toward BC Election 2024 (February 12, 2024)
- BC Conservatives launch family doc for MLA in Juan de Fuca-Malahat (February 6, 2024)
NEWS SECTIONS: BC ELECTION 2024 | POLITICS | VANCOUVER ISLAND | Island Social Trends Community Calendar
CANDIDATES by PARTY: BC NDP | BC UNITED | BC GREENS | BC CONSERVATIVES