ONE unsuccessful candidate for the provincial Skeena NDP nomination has dismissed the idea of running as an independent in the May 9 provincial election.
The day after Skeena New Democrats chose Bruce Bidgood to be their candidate Jan. 14, Facebook followers noted a post on Nicole Halbauer’s page about her possibly running as an independent candidate.
It reportedly said she would have more news about it at the end of last week, but the post disappeared within hours and nothing more was posted.
When asked, Halbauer said somebody put up a post on her page asking if she was going to run as an independent, which she said she took down when she saw it. Later she said she had thought about it for a bit.
“It ran through my mind but there was no meat to it, right?” she said last week. “It was just like ‘oh is that possible?’”
Halbauer was also asked to run for Kitsumkalum band council but she turned it down too.
“There’s qualified people to do that,” she said.
Halbauer has previously sat on Kitsumkalum band council and as a trustee on the local school board.
Since she’s in the middle of her master’s degree in business administration, she decided to focus on finishing and graduate in May.
Halbauer said it will then be time to start thinking of research ideas for a PhD.
Others in the running for the NDP nomination were Terrace city councillor Michael Prevost and Northwest Community College communications director Sarah Zimmerman.
Party members were asked to rank their preferences on one ballot. After the first count the lowest ranking candidate was dropped and the second preferences on the ballots were then distributed to the next remaining candidate. This was repeated until Bruce Bidgood emerged as the candidate with the most votes.
Tallies at each stage were not released.
