Conservative Kevin Acton elected in Vernon-Lumby riding

“I just feel like public service is a huge part of what the government’s supposed to be and I haven’t seen that. I haven’t seen a lot of consultation with the local government or the electorate.

“And then of course the big things for British Columbia. My biggest thing is attracting investment and building confidence in British Columbia. We’ve seen downgrades in our credit rating, we’ve seen people not investing in British Columbia, and I think the government has really driven that issue so I’m really hoping to turn that around.

Harwinder Sandhu, the B.C. NDP candidate and incumbent-MLA for Vernon-Lumby, finished second in the riding with over 37 per cent of the vote.

Sandhu spoke with Vernon Matters and conceded the election, adding she hoped Acton would see the projects started under her government completed, such as bringing the mental health hospital in Vernon online.

The local B.C. Green Party candidate finished the election with almost seven per cent support, while Chantel Gibbs of OneBC earned less than five per cent.

Elsewhere in the North Okanagan, ElectionsBC had Conservative Pavneet Singh winning the Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream riding with over 47 per cent of the vote, and Conservative David Williams winning the Salmon Arm-Shuswap seat with almost 55 per cent support.

ElectionsBC also had the Conservative Party of B.C. projected to win 64 seats and hold a majority government.

“For me, that was one of the things I said before, I said I don’t want to lose by a little bit or win by a little bit, I either want to lose by a lot or win by a lot so that we have a clear sense of what our purpose is,” Acton said.

“To me, that kind of majority government shows that British Columbians want something drastically different, and it’s going to make decision making for us a far lot easier.”

The MLA-Elect also went on to congratulate his fellow party members in the Okanagan, and the party leader, on their wins this election, saying he was excited to work with them in the Legislature.

The NDP were expected to win 27 seats, while the B.C. Greens were projected to win two.

The results of the provincial election were preliminary as of time of publication as the votes counted October 24 included those cast at district electoral offices and advance voting places, those cast at on Final Voting Day, and in-district ballots cast at special voting opportunities.

Those votes will be verified, and the vote-by-mail ballots, assisted telephone voting ballots, and absentee ballots will also be tallied and added to the count, which will be verified and finalized November 6.

by Liam Verster

Conservative Kevin Acton elected in Vernon-Lumby riding

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