Incumbent MLA: Kristina Loewen (BC Conservative | 2024)
Candidates:
BC NDP: Loyal Wooldridge
BC Conservatives: Kristina Loewen
OneBC: Bill Desrosiers
2024 Results:
BC Conservatives - 42.8%
BC NDP - 42.7%
Independent - 10.1%
BC Green - 4.3%
If you went back in time to a decade ago and told people in downtown Kelowna that the BC NDP would soon come within 40 votes of winning their riding, they would look at you like you needed to be committed to an asylum. Yet, in 2024, that’s exactly what happened.
The last provincial election was held amidst federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s surge nationwide. In Kelowna Centre though, the right-of-centre vote was not united behind the BC Conservatives. Former BC United candidate Michael Humer remained on the ballot after Kevin Falcon folded the party by continuing his run as an independent. Humer peeled off moderate voters who sought change, but weren’t fully sold on John Rustad and his neophyte team.
Things are different this time. For Loewen, she had had two years to make herself a familiar face to more voters in the riding. This time though, the vote splitting threat she faces is not to the centre, but to her right in the form of OneBC candidate Bill Desrosiers. As for the NDP’s returning candidate, city councillor Loyal Wooldridge, he not only has a favourable split on the right to exploit, but has no competition to his left since the Greens failed to get a candidate on the ballot.
Without another left-leaning option on the ballot this election, Wooldridge has effectively consolidated the centre-left behind his candidacy before a single ballot has even been cast.
The outgoing city councillor will want to run up the margins in new low-rise rental apartments south of Harvey Avenue and west of Gordon Drive, where the federal Liberals dominated in last year’s election. Zooming out, Wooldridge will be hoping to cement his advantage across all of downtown and its environs.
As for Loewen, her best chance to run up the margins will be in the Glenmore Highlands and Dilworth, in the northern and eastern reaches of the riding. The solidly upper-middle class homeowners in both neighbourhoods lean to the right, and her task will be to minimize the bleeding to OneBC there.
The real battleground will be east of Gordon Drive along Harvey Avenue in Glenmore and midtown among middle-class suburbanites that went for Carney but are more reticent to back the provincial New Democrats.
After sleeping on Kelowna Centre last time, both parties are now cognizant that this is a prime battleground. New BC Conservative leader Lorne Doerkson took a swing through Kelowna earlier, hammering the BC NDP on the same issue that nearly catapulted Rustad within a hair’s breadth of the Premier’s Office — public safety and drug use. Promises around involuntary care will play well across the riding, especially in the city’s downtown and post-industrial north end, where public disorder has spiked post-COVID.
Meanwhile, Wooldridge is drawing upon his experience in municipal politics to present himself as an experienced advocate on issues like transportation. Despite its growing size, Kelowna has a transit network that fails to meet its needs, with buses that either come late or don’t come at all. Wooldridge’s promise to fight for an extra lane on the Bennett Bridge will resonate with downtown residents and suburban commuters looking to get to West Kelowna as well.
Last year, former Liberal MP Stephen Fuhr beat incumbent Conservative Tracy Gray in the federal riding of Kelowna, a riding that encompasses most of Kelowna Centre and stretching beyond it to the east.
The flip augurs well for Wooldridge’s second kick at the can, especially with a dissident option to Loewen’s right. With the Conservatives having avoided a vote-split again in ridings like Vernon-Lumby and Richmond-Steveston, Kelowna Centre is a rare vulnerability for the Conservatives and a crucial opportunity for the New Democrats to go on the offensive.
Hugh Chan is an International Relations student at the University of British Columbia who sometimes moonlights as a political reporter.
