BC United picks Herb Haldane for Juan de Fuca-Malahat race

Friday June 28, 2024 | SOOKE, BC [Updated 9:35 am]

Political analysis by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends

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Known long-time to locals in the Sooke region, Herb Haldane is the BC United Party candidate for Juan de Fuca-Malahat in the upcoming provincial election, as announced by the party this week.

Haldane is like an itch that doesn’t go away. Now in his 60s, he’s been an active contributor to the Sooke community and political landscape for decades.

New riding with Sooke at the center:

Juan de Fuca-Malahat is a new electoral area carved out on both sides of Sooke to include Malahat (Mill Bay and Shawnigan) on the one side and Metchosin on the other.

That effectively makes Sooke the new ‘capital city’ of the rural areas beyond Langford, as Island Social Trends was first to point out over a year ago when the new provincial electoral boundaries were confirmed.

The electoral area formerly included Langford, which now means the urban focus shifts onto Sooke.

Still thought of as a rural area far-flung from the Victoria core, some of the new urban density in Sooke looks like big-city streetscapes that you’d find in any other city, except of course that some of the clifftop views are amazing (such as where Haldane is presently building another home for sale in the Grant Road West area).

Riding boundaries are changed based on population so that most ridings have about the same number of residents and voters. Population has been increasing in both Langford and Sooke over the years.

The official BC election campaign period (writ is dropped) on September 21. The election is on October 19, 2024.

Served on Sooke council:

Haldane was a District of Sooke municipal councillor elected in 2008 and again in 2011 for another three years; in 2014 he ran for mayor and suffered a resounding loss to Maja Tait who has held the mayor’s spot ever since. Haldane ran for council again in 2018, without success.

After that Haldane went back to his housing construction business full time. But he says he has remained frustrated at several things not getting better in the province, such as housing and regional transportation.

Last year Haldane joined the then-new Sooke Builders Association as well as continuing his involvement with the Sooke Community Association which owns Sooke Community Hall. He also talks about the local Slow-Pitch team which is a casual way to bring locals together without political differences getting in the way.

Haldane says the Sooke region community has faced numerous challenges “from inadequate infrastructure to unsustainable development practices” and wants to address them “head on”.

If elected this fall as MLA for the region, he wants to tackle the Highway 14 transportation issues, more specifically the Throup Road to Phillips Road connector road that would presumably ease some traffic angst. Sooke would still, however, remain a one-road-in-one-road-out kinda town which has significant impacts on the economy and lifestyles for many residents and small businesses.

What he brings to the table:

Is Herb Haldane an elegant orator? No, and he’d be the first to admit it. But does he know the Sooke region community inside and out? Yes, and he feels that will be a significant advantage to the BC United effort in Juan de Fuca-Malahat with his passion to seek substantive change in the way things are done.

Haldane says he did previously try to get the nomination to be the federal Conservative candidate in Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke earlier this year, but at the time the party had another candidate in mind.

He says he was brought into the provincial political loop for this campaign through Brian Butler of Butler Concrete who has strong Conservative deep roots in the region.

Other contenders in Juan de Fuca-Malahat:

The other candidates running in Juan de Fuca-Malahat so far are David Evans (also long-time of Sooke) for the BC Green Party and Dr Marina Sapozknikov (a family doctor originally from Ukraine) for the Conservative Party of BC.

Sooke roots run deep in this campaign. Some of the Evans backers are deep within the local school district realm and local business community including some of his backroom team who defected from the local NDP camp years ago, bringing their intel with them. Sapozknikov was brought into the fray by long-time conservative organizer Ellen Lewers.

The BC NDP has apparently narrowed down their choice to three possible candidates, including second-term District of Sooke Councillor Dana LaJeunesse. With long-time NDP MLA John Horgan having moved on and now Parmar running in the new Langford-Highlands riding, the BC NDP are taking time to be strategic with their candidate choice as someone who would be able to maintain the long-built NDP stronghold in Sooke. One source says July 20 might be when the BC NDP candidate will be announced.

BC United name change:

Last year, the BC United Party changed its name from the former BC Liberals. There has been some difficulty in traction with public awareness since that switch.

BC United Leader Kevin Falcon insists the name change will help the good fortunes of his party, but a great deal of polling over the last few months shows BC United in third place behind NDP as the front runner party and the Conservative Party of BC as the NDP’s strongest contender.

Earlier this month Falcon spun out a new slogan for his party: “British Columbians are maintstream, not extreme“, hoping that will attract voters from the centre or centre-right political spectrum.

===== ABOUT THE WRITER:

Mary P Brooke is the editor of Island Social Trends, a publication she launched in 2020 to explore the socioeconomic and political dynamics of the south Vancouver Island region, BC politics, and national issues.

Island Social Trends publishes daily at IslandSocialTrends.ca and bi-weekly in print. Premium Subscribers may purchase the PDF version of the print edition, which is delivered by email.

Ms Brooke lived in Sooke for 10 years, where she launched MapleLine Magazine (2008-2010) and then the weekly printed newspaper Sooke Voice News (2011-2013). During 2014-2020 she launched and ran West Shore Voice News, then moving to Langford in 2017.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, Ms Brooke shifted to posting her regional socioeconomic news insights and political analysis daily at IslandSocialTrends.ca and wrote extensively about the pandemic for a provincial audience. She now reports on provincial news issues alongside the BC Legislative Press Gallery.

===== RELATED:

• Juan de Fuca-Malahat race heating up in Sooke (June 29, 2024)
• BC Green powerhouse Adam Olsen shifts to building the party (June 25, 2024)
• Throup in Sooke: small road, big politics (June 22, 2024)
• Electoral momentum in Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke (June 21, 2024)
• Government’s job to keep running the province (June 18, 2024)
• “British Columbians are mainstream not extreme,” says BC United Leader Kevin Falcon (June 6, 2024)
• BC United name change could be its failing (May 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)

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