Laurie Throness is looking forward to winning the BC Liberal nomination in Chilliwack-Hope and taking on NDP MLA Gwen O’Mahony one more time.
O’Mahony won an April byelection that moved the riding into the NDP camp for the first time in decades.
But Throness believes the NDP victory was due only to the split in the conservative vote as the upstart BC Conservative Party took votes away from the BC Liberals.
“The people of Chilliwack-Hope voted strategically to send a message to the government, and I think they will send a message again … that they don’t want an NDP government,” he said Tuesday.
Throness believes voters in Chilliwack-Hope will return to the BC Liberals in the provincial election, just like his former byelection rival John Martin.
Martin has now quit the BC Conservatives and is running as the BC Liberal candidate in the Chilliwack riding to replace retiring MLA John Les.
In the byelection, the public expressed its mood by voting for the BC Conservatives, but Throness said he sees a change in that mood as the party is torn with internal struggles.
Which can only be good news for the BC Liberals.
Throness said if he wins the BC Liberal nomination, he’s eager to get back on the campaign trail and stand by the BC Liberal government’s financial record.
“It’s a government that deserves to be re-elected,” he said.
“It’s going to be an epochal action,” he said about the upcoming election. “I’m looking forward to it.”
No date has been set for the nomination meeting, but Throness said his candidate application was accepted by the party last Thursday.
