B.C. Conservative, NDP leaders rally election support in Vernon

B.C. Conservative, NDP leaders rally election support in Vernon

Published 4:20 pm Tuesday, October 6, 2026

As provincial election campaigns ramp up, two party leaders made stops in Vernon over the weekend to rally support and hear from constituents, while offering voters two distinct options in what is shaping up to be a highly contested riding.

B.C. Conservative leader Lorne Doerkson was at Okanagan Spirits Craft Distillery for a campaign event Friday, Oct. 2, while B.C. NDP leader David Eby’s bus pulled up on 30th Avenue Saturday for an event that highlighted several of his party’s Okanagan candidates.

The two leaders are polling as the frontrunners in the election, and the race appears to be tight.

At Doerkson’s event, more than 100 people filled the distillery and could be seen mingling with the Conservative leader and Vernon-Lumby Conservative candidate Kevin Acton in a two-hour meet and greet format.

The tone there was more laid back and conversational in comparison to the following night’s pep rally featuring Eby and local NDP candidate Harwinder Sandhu, as well as nearby candidates Binny Boparai (Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream), Gloria Morgan (Salmon Arm-Shuswap), Kory Clark (Kamloops-North Thompson) and Loyal Woolridge (Kelowna Centre).

Eby spoke to about 80 supporters at the event, which took place two days after he announced an election promise in Surrey to suspend the provincial motor fuel tax by 10 cents a litre. He added he would implement price controls to “cap excess industry margins” and enforce “strict pricing rules.”

On Saturday, Eby called it “a commitment to regulate the oil and gas companies to make sure that they’re not taking advantage of this moment to gouge British Columbians at the pump when they can least afford it.”

Eby also commented on his party’s other price control promise: to put a “price guard” on groceries.

“Did you know that one of the key initiatives that we have around groceries is just to legalize the ability of someone else to set up a competing grocery store near an existing store?” Eby asked. “When another store comes in, it drops people’s bills on average $700 a year just by opening another store. We’re going to make it legal for those stores to open.”

The NDP event did not take questions from the media. At the Conservative meet and greet, Doerkson provided a brief interview to The Morning Star.

Doerkson was in the area having made an announcement of the Conservatives’ wildfire action plan in Summerland that morning.

“It’s a half-billion dollars of investment in an innovation plan going forward and also the purchase of a fleet of water bombers,” Doerkson said.

Asked what he’s been hearing are the biggest local concerns heading into this election, Doerkson named health care, jobs and the economy as “focal points” for many local residents.

“And that does seem to be consistent just about everywhere,” he added.

Doerkson said he and other British Columbians are “frustrated” by the timing of the Oct. 24 snap election, which is coming a week after the local government elections and was called amid turbulent times for the Official Opposition Conservatives.

“David Eby had a majority government, so I’m not exactly sure what his plan was. I’m sure that it had to do with some kind of an opportunistic chance, but the reality is that we are focused on Oct. 24 and while I’m sad that he called this and even a little bit frustrated that he called it, we’re focused on winning and changing government,” Doerkson said.

This provincial election is ostensibly a referendum on tariff response, as Eby has said his reason for calling it was the need for a stronger mandate in order to respond to U.S. President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff strategy.

At Saturday evening’s event, Eby acknowledged that Okanagan residents are struggling with grocery, gas prices and the overall cost of living while stressing about their jobs, and placed blame on the impacts of Trump’s “tariff war.”

Doerkson, speaking in a local distillery Friday, highlighted his previous promise to remove the 10 per cent PST from Canadian alcohol as one of his party’s strategies for combatting U.S. tariffs. Removing interprovincial trade barriers will be a related focus, he said.

Both leaders championed their party’s candidates in the Vernon-Lumby riding.

“They said this seat couldn’t be won by the NDP. They said it couldn’t be done. Harwinder has done it twice,” Eby said. “She is an example of a local representative that cares about the priorities of the community and puts the priorities of the community first.”

Doerkson mentioned that Acton (who is simultaneously running to retain his seat as Lumby’s mayor, though he’s said he will vacate that seat if he wins in both elections and will pay for a municipal by-election) has already started advocating for the area, before the election has even happened.

“He’s been a great representative of civic politics and we’re terribly happy to have him as our representative. He brings a lot to the equation,” Doerkson said. “I’m proud to work with him.”