Sunday October 13, 2024 | SOOKE, BC [Updated 9:35 pm]
BC ELECTION CAMPAIGN DAY 23 of 28
Election feature by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
Your 28-day voter’s guide for BC Election 2024
Participating in democracy is a dream come true for Marina Sapozhnikov (sap-OJ-nee-kov).
Having grown up in Ukraine when it was part of the Soviet Union she knows what it’s like for people to not have freedom.
She expressed her conviction about “doing whatever we can” to maintain democracy in Canada, during her remarks at an all candidates meeting in Otter Point on September 29.
Juan de Fuca-Malahat:
Almost a year ago Sapozhnikov threw her hat into the ring as the BC Conservative candidate for the new riding of Juan de Fuca-Malahat.
It’s a vast riding geographically from east to west side of the island including Cobble Hill/Mill Bay/Shawnigan over to Metchosin as well as Sooke and west of Sooke through Otter Point and beyond Shirley up to Port Renfrew.
It’s also a demographically diverse riding with both wealthy and low-income households, and a well-integrated Indigenous community including T’Sou-ke First Nation and Pacheedhat. There is town and rural, as well as seaside, forest and farming areas.
Full-on campaigning:
Sapozhnikov is a medical doctor. She is on leave from her practice as a family doctor in Cobble Hill. Her colleagues have been very supportive, taking on her patients while has focused on the campaign.
Her husband Dave Larocque is her campaign manager, being fully supportive to her campaign.
Over the past 11 months Marina’s team has covered all the densely populated areas of Sooke and some of the rural areas, as well as in Metchosin and East Sooke. She has also been to Shirley and Port Renfrew. She has developed a high profile for her campaign in Shawnigan Lake, Cobble Hill and Mill Bay, including an all candidates meeting in Mill Bay today on Thanksgiving weekend.
Both rural and central, Sapozhnikov’s team has identified all their supporters through that extensive canvassing.
“Now we need to make sure these supporters come out and vote for us,” Sapozhnikov told Island Social Trends last week.
“I have been diligently answering questions. We’re doing our best,” she said about her campaign and team.
Admiring Rustad:
Sapozhnikov admires John Rustad as the BC Conservative Party leader. “John Rustad is a leader that I could always wish to have. Personally I admire him,” said Sapozhnikov last week.
“He’s very bright, he knows his party and politics very well. He’s out on the campaign trail every day,” she says.
Quick intro at a Rustad event:
Sapozhnikov joined Rustad for a quick introduction at the Mike Harris (Langford-Highlands) campaign office event on October 10 in Langford.
Rustad told the crowd: “Marina is doing great work out there, knocking on thousands and thousands of doors and working hard for us in Juan de Fuca-Malahat.”
Appreciating John Rustad:
“He is brave, he calls out things that need to be called out,” says Sapozhnikov. She notes challenges in the economy and the health-care sytsem as well as aspects of everyday life.
That was echoed by Mike Harris at the Langford event a few days ago: “The hard work that John puts in, it shows. When I think of hope I think of John.”
“John has never deviated from high principles and what we have to do,” says Marina Sapozhnikov. “I like his personality and honesty. It’s appealing,” she says.
Rustad has “consistency and courage” to deal with topics that were taboo just a year ago in BC, says Sapozhnikov, mentioning nuclear energy as an option for BC, as one case in point.
Involuntary care:
With her medical background, Sapozhnikov does support the BC Conservative position on involuntary care for people who have overdosed on drugs. As Rustad said last week in an interview with Island Social Trends: “If they have overdosed on drugs they are not making very good life decisions.”
SOGI:
As for the SOGI (sexual orientation and gender identity) program that has become a contentious issue in schools, Sapozhnikov points out that it began as an anti-bullying program but that over time it has “morphed into something different”.
“There’s been no transparency as to how this program has changed, and parents are not involved,” says Sapozhnikov.
There were a lot of questions to the three Juan de Fuca-Malahat candidates at today’s all candidates meeting in Cobble Hill, including SOGI. Sapozhnikov tells Island Social Trends that if the BC Conservatives form government they will change the SOGI program — still with an emphasis on anti-bulling but “if parents want the material to teach their children” about the sexual orientation and gender identity aspects then it will be provided, or the material will be covered in school in special classes.
Teachers should not be forced to teach the current material, says Sapozhnikov.
“Parents should be able to have a choice, It should not be taught behind the parents’ backs.” she told Island Social Trends.
The Juan de Fuca-Malahat race:
Marina Sapozhnikov as the BC Conservative candidate in Juan de Fuca-Malahat is up against BC NDP candidate Dana Lajeunesse and BC Green Party candidate David Evans.
Lajeunesse and Evans are long-time of Sooke (Lajeunesse is third-generation family in the area, and Evans has had a business there for over 25 years).
Hoping for a BC Conservative majority:
Sapozhnikov hopes to see the BC Conservatives win enough seats on October 19 in order to form government. At the very least it’s looking like (based on polls) that they could form a substantial official opposition in the 43rd BC Legislative Assembly.
At least 47 seats will be needed for either the BC NDP or BC Conservatives to achieve a majority.
The BC Legislative Assembly will now be comprised of 93 MLAs (up from 87 in the last parliament) so 48 to 50 seats would provide any party a more comfortable margin (as one MLA needs to be the speaker, and sometimes not all MLAs can be present for votes in the house).
===== RELATED:
- Day 20: Quick visit by John Rustad in Langford (October 10, 2024)
- Juan de Fuca-Malahat candidates face-off in Otter Point (September 30, 2024)
- BC Conservatives launch family doc for MLA in Juan de Fuca-Malahat (February 6, 2024)
- NEWS SECTIONS: POLITICS | VANCOUVER ISLAND | BC ELECTION 2024