BC Conservative leader John Cummins (centre) celebrates Saturday with Chilliwack candidate Chad Eros (left) and Chilliwack-Hope candidate Michael Henshall.
Photograph by: Submitted photo , for the TIMES
While critics say they're past their best-before date, the BC Conservative Party (BCCP) is not dead in the Eastern Fraser Valley and have candidates lined up for both local ridings.
Chad Eros and Michael Henshall were acclaimed for the ridings of Chilliwack and Chilliwack-Hope, respectively, at a nomination meeting held on Saturday.
"Our election team is taking shape with new candidates joining our roster each and every week," BCCP leader John Cummins said in a press release issued Wednesday.
"We're especially proud to have selected Chad Eros, Michael Henshall and Manuel Pratas [Dewdney] to represent our party in the Fraser Valley, and we believe that they will be outstanding MLAs for their ridings."
Henshall is a local realtor who worked on the Fight HST campaign and says he wants to see greater government accountability and transparency.
Eros is a business consultant and the father of nine homeschooled children. He put his name in as a city council candidate in 2011 at the last minute and finished 18th out of 20 candidates with 397 votes.
In response to a Tweet about his municipal election finish, Eros responded: "Cut from the first team I tried out for. Graduated high school MVP basketball, football, male athlete of the year. Don't quit!"
At the meeting Saturday, Henshall spoke about the two-party system in B.C. and how it has let people down.
"For too long-the past two decades-we the people of B.C. have stood idly by and allowed the provincial two-party system to serve special interest groups while the hardworking taxpayer pays the bills," he said. "It is time we keep the provincial government accountable for their actions. It is time that the
B.C. government answers and gives account for the use of our hard-earned tax dollars."
In the most recent local provincial vote, BC Conservative Party candidate John Martin finished third with 25.3 per cent of the vote in the Chilliwack-Hope byelection held last April.
NDP MLA Gwen O'Mahony won the election with 41.1 per cent of the vote and BC Liberal Laurie Throness finished second with 31.4 per cent.
All three parties now have candidates for both local ridings. In Chilliwack, Eros will be up against Martin, who is now a Liberal, and Patti MacAhonic for the NDP. In Chilliwack-Hope, Henshall faces Throness for the Liberals and O'Mahony for the NDP.
