OPINIONS

Wilbur Turner Wants to Be a School Trustee. Voters Should Examine His Political Record First.

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2 months ago

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Wilbur Turner Wants to Be a School Trustee. Voters Should Examine His Political Record First.

By Chad Dashly | The Current

Wilbur Turner would like voters in Lake Country and Central Okanagan East to see him as an experienced educator, parent and community advocate seeking a seat on the School District 23 board.

That is certainly part of his record.

It is not the whole record.

Turner is also a deeply political activist who has repeatedly targeted conservative MPs, MLAs, political parties, religious figures and even members of the LGBTQ community who disagree with his positions.

There is nothing improper about political activism. Canadians have every right to criticize their elected representatives, organize petitions and advocate for causes they believe in.

But when a prominent political advocate asks voters to entrust him with the education of children, his complete public record becomes relevant.

Turner is now one of three declared candidates for the Zone I school trustee position, along with Jennifer Miles and Sean Sookochoff. According to his campaign announcement, he believes “every child deserves a strong public school system” and says he wants to give families a stronger voice. His candidacy has been officially confirmed by the District of Lake Country.

Those are admirable words.

The question is whether Turner’s history demonstrates the temperament required to represent all families—including conservative, Christian and traditional families who may not share his political worldview.

The campaign to exclude Tracy Gray

One of Turner’s highest-profile political interventions came in 2021 after then-Conservative MP Tracy Gray voted against a federal bill dealing with conversion therapy.

Turner helped lead a task force that recommended Gray be told she was not welcome at Kelowna Pride events. The recommendation followed a town hall attended by approximately 350 people, according to Castanet.

Turner and others were entitled to condemn Gray’s vote. They were entitled to organize, protest and demand an explanation.

But attempting to exclude an elected representative from a major community celebration raised a different issue.

Was the goal engagement—or punishment?

Gray represented thousands of LGBTQ residents as well as thousands of religious and socially conservative constituents. A Pride organization could have invited her to attend, placed difficult questions before her and insisted she explain her position publicly.

Instead, Turner supported telling an elected MP that she was not welcome.

That is not bridge-building. It is political gatekeeping.

It also sits awkwardly beside Turner’s current message that voters deserve “real choice.” Choice cannot simply mean a choice between candidates who already agree with the activist establishment.

From criticizing an MLA to trying to remove her

Turner’s political activism escalated when he became an organizer of the campaign to recall Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream MLA Tara Armstrong.

Armstrong has made a series of statements and introduced legislation that attracted intense criticism. That includes bills relating to gender-transition treatments for minors and an unsuccessful proposal to repeal British Columbia’s Human Rights Code.

Those proposals deserved vigorous examination.

Turner, however, did not stop at arguing against Armstrong. He helped organize a campaign intended to remove her from office before the next general election.

The recall effort was announced within little more than a year of Armstrong’s election. Turner described her policies as “divisive and destructive,” while organizers began recruiting the considerable number of volunteers required to gather signatures from 40 per cent of eligible voters in the riding. The campaign and its timing were documented by Castanet and other regional news organizations.

Recall is a lawful democratic mechanism. Using it is not misconduct.

But voters should still consider the threshold Turner appears to apply. Is recall reserved for corruption, serious wrongdoing or a complete abandonment of public duty? Or should it be used against politicians whose ideas an activist considers unacceptable?

Armstrong’s policies were controversial, but they were hardly concealed from voters. She was elected as a socially conservative candidate in a conservative-leaning riding. Her constituents were capable of judging her record at the next election.

Turner’s campaign effectively argued that they should not have to wait.

Pressure campaigns and cancelled events

Turner was also a vocal opponent of American worship leader and political activist Sean Feucht holding events on publicly owned Canadian property.

Feucht has made provocative and offensive statements about LGBTQ people. Turner understandably argued that this rhetoric contributes to stigma and can harm vulnerable young people.

But the controversy was never limited to whether Feucht’s opinions were offensive. It became a dispute about whether public facilities should host a lawful religious gathering at all.

After venues declined or cancelled events, Turner defended the community pressure that contributed to those decisions. He has argued that opposing extremist rhetoric is a necessary form of civic participation. The Tyee reported his concern that complacency allows hateful ideas to grow.

Turner has every right to protest Feucht.

But defenders of civil liberty also had legitimate grounds to worry about governments or publicly funded facilities deciding which lawful religious or political messages may be heard.

Free expression is easiest to defend when the speaker is polite, fashionable and popular. The real test comes when the speaker is objectionable.

A future school trustee will encounter parents, students and employees with profoundly different religious, political and moral convictions. The job is not to eliminate those disagreements. It is to manage them fairly and within the law.

A columnist who regularly puts opponents in the dock

Turner’s political commentary offers further insight into how he approaches disagreement.

In his columns, Turner has attacked Dallas Brodie, Tara Armstrong, OneBC, Pierre Poilievre and other conservative politicians. He has described OneBC’s politics as a campaign of “fear and resentment” and accused the party of building resentment against immigrants, Indigenous communities, educators, and queer and transgender people.

In a 2025 Tyee column, Turner called OneBC’s approach “the classic populist playbook” and said its rhetoric represented a danger to democracy.

In another column, he declared that white supremacy had established a place in British Columbia politics. Elsewhere, he characterized federal Conservative policies as culture-war politics that would fail when confronted by the Charter, the courts or serious financial analysis.

Turner has also criticized Conservative politicians who defended Christian expression in public spaces. When Kelowna-Centre MLA Kristina Loewen objected to wording placed near the city’s nativity display, Turner called her response divisive and “far-fetched,” according to Global News.

Any one of those criticisms can be defended as political opinion.

Taken together, however, they reveal a consistent pattern: Turner does not merely disagree with political opponents. He frequently places them within a moral framework in which their words are treated as threats, their motives are suspect and their participation may be considered harmful.

That posture works well for an activist and opinion columnist. It can mobilize supporters, generate media attention and draw sharp lines between allies and adversaries.

It is far more troubling in a school trustee.

The contradiction at the centre of Turner’s candidacy

Turner says he wants to represent families and provide voters with a meaningful choice.

But which families?

Would parents who question aspects of SOGI programming receive a fair hearing, or would they be dismissed as participants in a campaign of fear and resentment?

Would religious parents who object to particular classroom materials be treated respectfully, or associated with the rhetoric of American Christian nationalism?

Would teachers with conventional political views feel comfortable disagreeing with him publicly?

Would transgender students be protected from harassment? They absolutely should be. But would female students, gay and lesbian students, religious students and politically conservative students receive the same willingness to hear their concerns?

These are not hypothetical distractions. They go directly to the role of a trustee.

School boards must oversee budgets, facilities, transportation, enrolment growth, special education, academic achievement, student safety and relationships with parents. Trustees must make decisions affecting families whose beliefs stretch across the entire political spectrum.

That requires patience, restraint and the ability to distinguish disagreement from hatred.

Turner’s advocacy record demonstrates passion. It demonstrates persistence. It demonstrates his willingness to confront people he believes are causing harm.

What it does not consistently demonstrate is an instinct for pluralism.

Advocacy is not governance

The strongest advocates are not always the best governors.

An advocate chooses a cause and advances it relentlessly. A trustee must weigh competing rights, incomplete information, limited resources and the legitimate concerns of people with whom he disagrees.

Turner should not be attacked for being gay, for defending transgender people or for advocating for vulnerable youth. Those are not controversies, and they are not disqualifications.

The legitimate concern is political conduct.

He supported excluding an elected MP from Pride events. He organized an effort to recall an MLA whose positions he opposed. He participated in campaigns intended to deny controversial speakers access to public venues. He has repeatedly used his media platform to portray conservative politicians and organizations as dangerous, extremist or morally compromised.

Now he is asking to oversee a public education system that belongs equally to the people he has spent years denouncing.

Turner may argue that his activism proves he has the courage to protect students. His opponents may argue it shows he brings too much ideology and confrontation to a position that requires balance.

That is the debate Lake Country voters should have.

This election should not be about Turner’s identity. It should not be about denying the valuable community work he has performed. Nor should it descend into the personal hostility that has already poisoned too much of Canadian politics.

It should be about judgment.

Wilbur Turner has built a public career by challenging, condemning and organizing against those with whom he disagrees. He is entitled to that record.

Voters are equally entitled to examine it before deciding whether he is the person they want governing their schools.

Chad Dashly is an opinion columnist with The Current. The views expressed are those of the author.

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OPINIONS

The Money Spoke Before the Voters Did: How B.C.’s Conservatives Turned Chaos Into Victory

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2 hours ago

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November 5, 2026

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The Money Spoke Before the Voters Did: How B.C.’s Conservatives Turned Chaos Into Victory

By Chad Dashly | The Current | November 5, 2026

There is an old saying in politics: follow the money.

In British Columbia, the money was telling a story long before voters went to the polls on October 24. And if anyone at NDP headquarters was paying attention, they should have been worried.

New third-quarter fundraising figures show the Conservative Party of British Columbia raised approximately $2.73 million, compared with just $986,093 for the NDP.

Nearly three dollars for the Conservatives for every dollar raised by the New Democrats.

But the real story isn’t simply how much money came in. It’s when it arrived — and what that tells us about the extraordinary political transformation British Columbia has just experienced.

From Political Chaos to Political Capital

Only weeks before the election, the BC Conservatives appeared to be doing everything possible to destroy themselves.

Leadership disputes. Caucus defections. Public disagreements. A party seemingly more interested in fighting itself than fighting the government.

Then came September 20.

Kerry-Lynne Findlay resigned as Conservative leader, and Cariboo-Chilcotin MLA Lorne Doerkson stepped into the leadership.

What happened next should become a case study for political strategists across Canada.

Between September 20 and September 30, Conservative contributions totalled approximately $2.45 million — nearly 90 per cent of the party’s entire third-quarter fundraising.

Think about that.

A party struggling to hold itself together suddenly attracted millions of dollars in political contributions in just eleven days.

That doesn’t happen by accident.

It suggests donors who had been sitting on the sidelines were suddenly prepared to invest in a political organization they believed could win.

The change in leadership mattered. So did the prospect of an election. And the Conservatives had something they hadn’t possessed in months: a credible opportunity to unite their competing factions around a common objective.

Winning.

David Eby’s Political Miscalculation

Premier David Eby called a snap election on September 22, two years ahead of the scheduled provincial vote.

The calculation appeared straightforward.

The Conservatives were divided. Their leadership had collapsed. Their caucus had fractured. Surely this was the moment to strike.

Except something had changed.

The Conservative Party that Eby expected to face was rapidly becoming a different political organization.

Doerkson’s arrival created an opportunity for reconciliation among Conservatives who had spent months arguing about personalities, policies and direction.

And the fundraising figures suggest that opportunity resonated.

Meanwhile, the NDP struggled to generate comparable financial enthusiasm.

That is not necessarily proof that donors predicted the election result. Political contributions are influenced by many factors, including campaign timing, organizational strength and individual donor networks.

But the disparity was an unmistakable warning.

Eby may have correctly identified Conservative instability. What he appears to have underestimated was how quickly that instability could turn into unity when the prospect of forming government became real.

The Interior Has Become the Centre of Political Power

There is another dimension to this election that deserves attention.

British Columbia’s political centre of gravity has shifted.

For decades, provincial politics has been dominated by Vancouver, Victoria and the Lower Mainland.

Now a politician from the Cariboo-Chilcotin is preparing to lead the province.

That matters.

For communities throughout the Thompson, Okanagan, Cariboo and northern British Columbia, the election represents an opportunity to bring regional economic concerns directly into the premier’s office.

Forestry. Mining. Natural gas. Agriculture. Transportation infrastructure. Permitting delays.

These are not abstract policy debates for people who live and work outside the Lower Mainland.

They determine whether businesses invest, whether young families can remain in their communities and whether the next generation has meaningful economic opportunities.

Doerkson has promised to make economic development a priority.

The question now is whether his government can turn those promises into measurable results.

Money Can Win Elections. It Cannot Govern.

Conservatives should be careful about celebrating too early.

Preliminary election results give the party 63 of the legislature’s 93 seats, although the final count is still pending.

That is a commanding position.

But a large majority does not automatically produce a successful government.

The same party that recently struggled with internal divisions must now demonstrate cabinet discipline, sound fiscal management and the ability to make difficult decisions.

British Columbians will expect progress on affordability, health care, housing and economic opportunity.

They will also expect accountability.

The Conservatives have promised no new taxes, faster approvals for major projects and stronger support for resource development.

Delivering those commitments while maintaining essential public services will require more than campaign slogans.

It will require serious governing.

The Lesson for Every Political Party

The fundraising numbers reveal something larger than a financial advantage.

They suggest a dramatic change in political confidence.

Donors were willing to back the Conservatives despite the party’s recent turmoil. Voters subsequently handed them a decisive preliminary victory.

For the NDP, the implications are equally significant.

A party that controlled the government machinery and chose the election date was unable to match its opponent’s fundraising momentum.

That demands more than a routine campaign review.

It demands an examination of leadership, organization, voter relationships and the party’s understanding of the province’s changing political priorities.

For the Conservatives, the challenge is different.

They have won the opportunity to govern. Now they must prove they deserve to keep it.

The money may have spoken before the voters did. But from this point forward, British Columbians will judge their new government not by what it raised, but by what it delivers.

Chad Dashly writes political commentary for The Current, examining British Columbia politics, public policy and the decisions shaping communities across the province.

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OPINIONS

Kelowna Centre’s 132-Vote Warning: Nobody Owns This Riding

Published

3 days ago

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November 2, 2026

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Kelowna Centre’s 132-Vote Warning: Nobody Owns This Riding

Opinion | By Chad Dashly

Kristina Loewen’s narrow lead over Loyal Wooldridge carries a message both parties should hear: voters’ support must be earned, and every ballot matters.

One hundred and thirty-two votes.

That is the gap between Conservative Kristina Loewen and New Democrat Loyal Wooldridge in Kelowna Centre’s initial count. Loewen has 10,791 votes. Wooldridge has 10,659. With final counting still ahead, those numbers describe a lead, not a finished election.

They also deliver a political warning.

Anyone who believes a party can plant its flag in Kelowna Centre and assume the territory belongs to them should take another look at the scoreboard.

This riding requires persuasion. It requires candidates who show up, listen and give people a reason to trust them. And when the votes are this close, the difference between winning and losing can fit inside a few apartment buildings.

For campaign teams, that should be sobering. For voters who have ever wondered whether their ballot matters, it should settle the question.

The count deserves patience

Elections BC has scheduled the final count for November 6–10. Vote-by-mail and other absentee ballots were not included in the election-night count. Those ballots undergo additional eligibility checks before being counted.

Counting them is part of completing the election.

The legitimacy of a ballot does not depend on whether it helps your candidate. Both camps should be capable of saying that clearly before they know the outcome.

Loewen deserves recognition for holding the lead. Wooldridge deserves recognition for remaining within striking distance. Neither observation gives anyone permission to get ahead of the process.

Close elections demand discipline from candidates, parties and commentators alike. Declare what is known. Explain what remains outstanding. Let the count finish.

Conservatives should resist complacency

For Conservatives, the uncomfortable question is straightforward: why is Kelowna Centre still so competitive?

A lead this narrow should prompt a serious examination of local organization, candidate accessibility, voter contact and the strength of the offer being made at the doorstep.

The numbers alone cannot tell us which factor mattered most. They certainly do not establish what every voter intended.

But they do establish that the party has little room for complacency.

Being the Conservative candidate carries an obligation to earn confidence beyond the people already wearing the jersey. Residents need to see someone prepared to work on housing affordability, access to health care, public safety and the conditions facing local businesses.

Those are reasonable standards by which to judge whoever represents this riding.

If Loewen holds the seat, she should treat the result as an instruction to broaden her support. A narrow victory still gives an MLA the full responsibility of office—including responsibility to constituents who voted for somebody else.

New Democrats should ask harder questions, too

Wooldridge’s competitive showing gives the NDP something to examine seriously.

It does not give the party a licence to assume that everyone who supported him endorsed every provincial policy carrying the NDP label. Voters can support a candidate for several reasons: personal confidence, local relationships, party loyalty or concern about the alternatives.

Sorting those reasons out takes listening.

If Wooldridge falls short, the useful response will be to identify where confidence was earned and where it remained out of reach. Coming close can be the foundation for future success. It can also become an excuse to avoid changing anything.

The party should be careful which lesson it chooses.

The third candidate’s voters belong to themselves

OneBC candidate Bill Desrosiers received 873 votes in the initial count—well above the gap between the two leading candidates.

That will invite arguments about vote splitting.

The arithmetic is obvious. The assumptions require more care.

Those ballots cannot simply be reassigned to the Conservatives in an imaginary two-candidate contest. Some voters might have chosen Loewen. Others might have stayed home or made a different choice.

Parties frustrated by another candidate’s support should ask why those voters wanted another option. Their votes must be earned, too.

Kelowna Centre has delivered a useful reminder to everyone in politics: a riding is a community of people making individual decisions.

Finish counting their ballots. Respect the result. Then get to work earning a little more trust than you had before.

At 132 votes, there is precious little room to take anyone for granted.

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BC STORIES

Why the Early Election Gamble Backfired on the NDP

The B.C. Conservative Party is set to claim two-thirds of legislative seats after David Eby’s snap election call backfired, leaving the NDP seeking new leadership.

Published

1 week ago

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October 27, 2026

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Voters Deliver Decisive Result in 2026 Snap Vote

Following the outcome of British Columbia’s 2026 snap election, the Conservative Party of B.C. is set to capture two-thirds of the seats in the legislature, leaving the NDP searching for a new party leader. Outgoing Premier David Eby initiated the vote two years ahead of schedule, citing the need for a fresh mandate to confront U.S. trade challenges while also seeking to capitalize on internal Conservative divisions.

However, the early vote call drew criticism from within his own party. NDP MLA Ravi Parmar, who won a tight contest in Langford-Highlands, stated that electors sent a clear signal that the early election was a mistake. According to Parmar, the party spent the campaign defending the timing of the vote rather than promoting its platform, which severely hurt their leadership.

Record-Low Voter Turnout and Campaign Missteps

Preliminary figures indicate voter participation dropped to just over 48 per cent. Total votes fell for both major parties compared to 2024, with Conservatives dropping by approximately 50,000 votes and the NDP seeing a decline of about 275,000. Mario Canseco of polling firm Research Co. pointed to poor messaging and rainy weather as factors, noting that Eby’s campaign remained focused on attacking former Conservative leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay, even though she had resigned two days prior to the election call.

Canseco noted that voters perceived interim Conservative leader Lorne Doerkson as a steady presence, making the NDP’s warnings of party instability ineffective. Late-campaign efforts by Eby to draw Green Party voters to the NDP also proved insufficient, as calculations showed the Conservatives would have won even if all Green supporters had shifted their ballots.

Analysis of a Political Miscalculation

Political science lecturer Stewart Prest from the University of British Columbia described the early call as a major political blunder and an own goal driven by partisan hubris. He noted that Eby ran a negative campaign that ultimately failed to resonate with the public.

Former Conservative leader John Rustad attributed his party’s victory to public dissatisfaction with the opportunistic timing of the election. Rustad, who became the party’s sole MLA in 2023 before leading them close to victory in 2024, said voters have used the past two years to become more comfortable with the Conservatives, who have not governed the province in a century.

Campaign consultant Mike McKinnon, who advised calling the snap election to secure a stronger mandate for trade negotiations, admitted the decision proved far more damaging than anticipated. Unlike the 2020 early election under John Horgan, where public frustration quickly faded, McKinnon acknowledged that Eby remained stuck defending the decision throughout the entire campaign.

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