Three candidates seeking to win the provincial riding of Saanich North and the Islands will be grilled by members of the Saanich Peninsula Chamber of Commerce on April 13.
That’s the date for an All Candidates Luncheon, hosted by the Chamber, at the Brentwood Bay Resort.
The luncheon starts at 12 and finishes at 2 p.m. Questions are being taken now by the Chamber, which will be posed to the candidates during the luncheon. Entry to the event will cost $55 and for information, contact info@peninsulachamber.ca.
The format is similar to the Chamber’s annual Mayors’ Breakfast, which this year saw only questions that had been pre-submitted to the Chamber, asked of the mayors of Sidney, North Saanich and Central Saanich.
The contest for Saanich North and the Islands features the same three candidates who ran for the job three years ago — Gary Holman (NDP – incumbent), Stephen Roberts (BC Liberals) and Adam Olsen (BC Green Party).
Holman took the riding with only 163 votes more than Roberts. Olsen was a close third — 379 votes back of Holman and only 216 votes back of Roberts.
The NDP won the riding with 33 per cent of the overall vote, while the BC Liberals had 32.76 per cent and the BC Greens had 32.07 per cent.
Independent candidate Scott McEachern earned 599 votes, or 1.9 per cent of the overall votes cast in 2013.
Until 2013’s result, which went to the B.C. NDP, the riding had been held by the BC Liberals since 1991. Prior to 1991, the riding was known as Saanich and the Islands and was held mostly by the Social Credit Party. The riding, for the 1991 election, was split into Saanich North and the Islands and Saanich South.
