Juliette Sicotte, Liberal Party candidate for Okanagan Lake West-South Kelowna/Contributed

By Glenn Hicks

Candidate

‘Trump is the five-alarm fire’: Liberal Juliette Sicotte

Mar 28, 2025 | 9:57 AM

One of our local federal Liberal candidates for next month’s general election is leaving no doubt about the focus of her campaign.

Juliet Sicotte is the Liberal Party candidate for Okanagan Lake West-South Kelowna.

Asked if more traditional bread and butter election issues were being sidelined because of the tariff and sovereignty threats from US President Donald Trump, Sicotte said the concern about what’s coming from the White House is what’s she hearing on doorsteps.

“What’s keeping people awake at night is President Trump and his tariffs and trying to cripple our economy,” she said. ” With our constituents it’s the five-alarm fire that we’re dealing with now. That has to be dealt with.”

She said the messaging from Prime Minister Mark Carney has been positive, proactive and non-divisive including his meeting with all premiers and focusing on removing barriers to interprovincial trade.

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“He’s making a great effort in unifying our country,” she said.

(Click play below for video clip of Juliette Sicotte)

Sicotte, who is Metis Cree, has lived in the Okanagan for 30 years and has a background in arts sales. She has also spent the last 21 years working for a technology company that makes engineering instrumentation.

“I have my feet firmly in both worlds, ” she explained, noting she’s Canadian first, but with a foot in the Indigenous world and a solid understanding of the business community. She says if elected, she wants to support small and medium sized businesses as they are what she calls the backbone of the valley. Dealing with flood and wildfire mitigation and protection is also on her slate.

Conservatives have much criticized the sudden reversal by the Liberals of deeply unpopular policies that saw Justin Trudeau well behind leader Pierre Poilievre in the polls late last year. Tories have suggested how Carney and the Liberals are fundamentally the same even as they make about-turns in areas such as energy infrastructure, the carbon tax and inheritance tax. But Sicotte says that’s not what she’s hearing on doorsteps; Trump is dominating the discourse.

Political analysts figured just five months ago that the Liberals were politically dead and buried but they now find themselves ahead of the Conservatives in the polls. Sicotte says it’s all down to dealing with the unpredictability of Trump.

“Having a leader like Prime Minister Carney really reinvigorated the party and then having him win the leadership, that was even better. Really, Mark Carney is the right guy for the moment.”