It’s not one election, we’re often reminded. It’s a series of individual face-offs, 87 in all, next time around.
And news this week that Ellis Ross is now a B.C. Liberal candidate makes the Skeena riding one of the more interesting ones to watch. As elected chief councillor of the Haisla First Nation near Kitimat, he boarded the liquefied natural gas train early on. He was and is one of the most prominent native proponents of the LNG vision. The only problem is that the train is parked on a siding and isn’t going anywhere at the moment.
Not that it’s Ross’s fault. The B.C. interests that have pursued the dream for years set the table for the industry, but the feast was cancelled by a dramatic change in global markets attributed mostly to the drop in oil prices.
When Ross stands for election next spring, he will represent a major project that has yet to go anywhere, despite repeated assurances from the government that northwestern B.C. would be awash in LNG wealth by now.
Still, the B.C. Liberals are excited to recruit him, to the point where he is nominated directly. Adding to the buzz is the fact there’s no incumbent, since the current MLA, Robin Austin, is retiring next May.
Austin held the seat for the NDP through three elections.
Even if a plant were underway, winning Skeena would be an uphill battle for the B.C. Liberals. The riding, through various configurations, has voted NDP steadily through the years, and had only brief flirtations with the Liberals and, back in time, the Social Credit party.
Premier Christy Clark is confident that record will change.
“We’re going to see the numbers for Ellis Ross in this community of Skeena come in big,” she said at the announcement. Clark lauded his work on LNG and preferred to concentrate on the benefits from the billions spent in the region exploring and preparing for LNG, rather than the fact that it hasn’t happened yet.
She mentioned the economy has “slowed down a bit,” but cited that as a reason to continue pushing the idea forward.
“The issue is crystal clear — do you want jobs and economic growth or to go backward?”
Ross, equally convinced LNG will eventually happen, made his debut as a partisan candidate. “You can’t point to one thing that happened that didn’t have a connection with government. It all came for the relationship we have with this government.
“Northwest B.C. is full of economic potential, but the NDP oppose every proposal. People in this region deserve more than that.”
Ross was just as committed against the Northern Gateway pipeline as he was in favour of LNG development. He led the 1,700-member Haisla, about half of whom live on reserves, for two terms and has said he isn’t running for a third.
Just So You Know: There’s keen interest in the NDP nomination as well, naturally, since the party has done well in the riding for years. But the NDP’s diversity mandate that aims to ensure gender equity and some representation of youth, gay/lesbian/bi/transgendered, persons of colour, First Nations and the disabled on the slate makes things a little complicated.
A complicated process was devised in 2007 and ratified at the convention after heated debate. The conventional understanding is that when an NDP MLA vacates the seat, the nomination goes into a category reserved for women.
Two women so far have announced they’re running for the nomination, Sarah Zimmerman and Nicole Halbauer, who is native.
A white male — Bruce Bidgood, a college professor and former Terrace councillor — announced last month he will also run.
The gender-equity policy appears to be a hurdle, but Bidgood has another card to play.
He told the Terrace Standard in announcing his candidacy that: “My understanding is after a white male [incumbent], the NDP makes a special effort to recruit people from equity-seeking groups.”
But he noted he is also a person with an invisible disability, as he is hearing-impaired. He lost a great deal of his hearing while working in industry to pay his way through university.
