The OneBC candidate for Kootenay-Monahsee is billing himself as the “true conservative” in the race.
Stephen Hill said he founded the local Conservative riding association and was involved in organizing the annual general meeting until about two weeks ago. But he feels the party has suddenly been “hijacked by the Liberals.”
BC United, formerly the BC Liberals, is not on the ballot in this election. Hill said those former party members have moved to the BC Conservatives while OneBC is standing up as the conservative arm.
“We know we’re not going to form government, but we’re hoping that we’ll get a 40-seat Conservative government with OneBC holding five to 10 seats and the balance of power,” he said.
Hill said there was a movement within the BC Conservatives to bring OneBC and its leader, Dallas Brodie, back into the fold. However, he said that ended once Peter Milobar and Ian Paton rejoined the party after briefly leaving to form a new party.
Hill said he was stunned to learn that Warren Mirko had been named the Conservative candidate in Kootenay-Monashee. “Nobody from the party contacted the board,” he said. “Nobody asked us if we had any candidates.” He also questions Mirko’s Conservative bonafides.
Hill, who is a retired financial planner from Castlegar, said he reluctantly agreed to be the OneBC candidate after initially saying no.
“I’m doing this for my kids,” he said. “My daughter’s in Calgary, my son’s in Toronto, and why did they leave British Columbia? Why do they see no future in coming back to this province and this area?”
Hill said he is running on a platform of “prosperity, not poverty,” including mandatory rehabiliation for drug users.
He is also concerned with BC’s debt and the cost of servicing that debt. “The current failed NDP policy is not sustainable,” he said. “We have to stop that bleeding immediately and stop running businesses like Interfor and others, my son included, out of the province.”
Hill is calling for more business people in the legislature and a culture that attracts capital.
“I mean, we have a tanker ban. We can’t build pipelines to the coast and ship oil if we have a tanker ban,” he said.
“We have rail lines and ports that can’t get our coal to market. We’re losing billions of dollars of sales that result in tax revenue that allows us to fund nursing, hospitals, policing, and allows us to take care of our homeless. But when you’ve got a welfare state sucking on the wealth of the people of the province, we can’t move forward.”
Hill has lived in the area for 33 years and worked with the Conservatives both provincially and federally. He ran federally in BC Southern Interior in 2011 and finished runner-up to New Democrat Alex Atamanenko. He has since worked on federal campaigns for local MPs Helena Konanz and Rob Morrison.
Hill said he is less concernead about vote splitting than with the number of people who didn’t vote in the last election.
“Our NDP candidate didn’t win the last election. The couch won. He got 10,000 votes. The couch got 13,000 votes. So my job is to motivate those folks sitting on the sidelines and say what do I have to do to motivate you to get off the couch?”
In addition to Mirko, Hill is running against incumbent NDP MLA Steve Morissette and the Green Party’s Connie Larochelle.
