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Kyle Delfing, Eric Foster, Harwinder Sandhu, Keli Westgate: Vernon-Monashee B.C. election candidates in October 2020.

Sandhu ran lean campaign to win Vernon riding

Feb 1, 2021 | 3:29 PM

Harwinder Sandhu spent $5,217 on her campaign that led to the NDP candidate winning the Vernon-Monshee riding in last October’s B.C. election.

Documents released by Elections BC for all the parties and candidates show more than half of Sandhu’s expenses were for advertising at $3,139, with $2,536 of that for signs.

Some of Sandhu’s signs were defaced and damaged during the campaign.

She had no political contributions listed to her campaign, and received $6,993 from the B.C. NDP in transfers.

“Our party accepts and processes donations on behalf of our candidates and then transfers the funds to the local campaign. This means that donations to our local candidates are reported as donations to the BC NDP. The BC Liberals process donations in a similar way,” Heather Libby, BC NDP Communications, told Vernon Matters.

Runner-up Eric Foster of the Liberals had $30,325 in expenses, with two-thirds of that spent on advertising ($20,631).

Foster, who was the three-term incumbent MLA, had $8,175 in political contributions—the largest of which are listed as Gerald Raboch at $1,200 and Melanie Luelle King with $1,000.

Foster received $39,886 from the B.C. Liberal Party in transfers.

Third place Keli Westgate of the B.C. Green Party received $100 in political donations, and $8,953 in transfers from her party.

Westgate’s expenses totalled $9,375 with $8,792 of that for advertising.

Fourth place Kyle Delfing of the B.C. Conservative Party had $3,604 in expenses ($3,585 for advertising), and $3,354 in political contributions—the largest one for $1,350 from an anonymous donor and $1,253 from Amanda Boschman.

Delfing was provided $356 in transfers from his party.

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