Brenda Dorosz, who led the fight to save Osoyoos Secondary School, is seeking the provincial NDP nomination in Boundary-Similkameen. (Richard McGuire photo)
Brenda Dorosz learned an important lesson during the struggle to save Osoyoos Secondary School (OSS) from closure earlier this year – the power of ordinary people committed to a cause.
Now she wants to apply that lesson in her quest to become the next MLA for Boundary-Similkameen, running under the NDP banner.
“A normal, everyday person can make a difference,” said Dorosz, 46. “I don’t want to be a typical politician. I want to be a person that will work hard and get action. I don’t want to be up on a pedestal because that’s not who I am.”
But before Dorosz can become MLA, she faces several major challenges.
First she must win her party’s nomination on Jan. 15, where she faces a strong opponent, Grand Forks councillor Colleen Ross, who has a longer track record with the party.
Allan Patton, who had been expected to run, recently pulled out and threw his support to Ross.
On the other hand, Dorosz says she’s had encouragement from across the province, with people ranging from NDP Education Critic Rob Fleming to former Osoyoos Mayor Stu Wells urging her to run.
Even if Dorosz secures the nomination in January, she’ll have less than four months to become known as the candidate before facing B.C. Liberal incumbent MLA Linda Larson, who has represented the constituency for four years.
Nor has it helped that the NDP’s lengthy vetting process, early cutoff for membership sales and late nomination date hamstrung all potential nominees.
Dorosz only had a little over a week between when she was allowed to go public about seeking the nomination and the cutoff date for recruiting new members who would be eligible to vote in the nomination.
Still, it would be a serious mistake to underestimate her energy and determination, as the battle to save OSS showed.
Dorosz chaired the Save Our Schools (SOS) committee, pulling together a grassroots, community-based team after School District 53 announced plans in January to close the school.
When the school district ratified its decision in April, Dorosz and her community allies abruptly shifted their focus and began planning an independent school to keep students in Osoyoos.
At the last minute, as OSS prepared to close on June 30, MLA Larson and the B.C. Liberal government announced a new Rural Education Enhancement Fund that allowed the school to stay open.
Dorosz reflects on what she learned from the struggle of nearly six months that took over her life.
“Just be persistent and keep going,” she said. “Don’t take ‘no’ for an answer. You need a loud voice. I think I proved, as did our entire community, we were known across Canada, we all came together as a community and we did it.”
Ironically, the woman who was behind the bullhorn at rallies and who stood up to school trustees at meetings of more than 1,000 people, wasn’t always so outgoing.
As a child, she admits, she was painfully shy.
“I was very, very shy,” admits Dorosz, who came to Osoyoos at the age of six months. “I would not talk to anyone. My mom tried to get me into drama in high school, but there was no way I was doing that.”
That began to change as Dorosz took on more and more community roles as a young adult – she served on the irrigation board, volunteered with Communities for Kids, and was on the executive of Sagebrush Lodge, a predecessor of Mariposa Gardens.
As her son, Trevor, became of school age, she got involved with the Parent Advisory Council, chairing it and later chairing the district PAC. She also served as a volunteer parent on the school district’s budget committee.
At one point, about a decade ago, she worked briefly with the RCMP on a crystal meth task force until it lost its funding.
Her community activism hasn’t ended with the school battle.
Most recently, Dorosz, along with two other Osoyoos women, Gaye Horn and Jen Shiels, launched the Osoyoos Gift Cupboard where people can donate items to others in the community.
“Last night Gaye, Jen and I were out hunting homeless people and delivering sleeping bags to them,” Dorosz said in an interview last Thursday. “There’s more homeless people here than you think. So that’s something I’m going to be focusing on.”
While juggling this initiative with her regular vineyard job and her quest for the NDP nomination, Dorosz said she’s encountered interest elsewhere in the constituency in the gift cupboard idea.
“There’s more and more people falling through the cracks, whether it be seniors or kids or single-parent households,” she said. “I would like to put one in every community in the constituency.”
Where does Dorosz get her energy?
“It just goes,” she said. “I go to bed very early though. I need my sleep at night, and then I’m up very early in the morning.”
She’s typically up around 4:30 a.m., she said, before heading off to work in the vineyards. Working with her husband Brian, who was her high school sweetheart, she is assistant vineyard manager at Moon Curser Vineyards.
She used to get up at 3:30 a.m. to work out before starting work in the fields at 5 a.m.
“I don’t do that anymore,” she said.
Dorosz said she hasn’t had a chance to get to know nomination rival Ross well, but she sees the two as being slightly different in focus, but not differing substantially on the issues themselves.
Ross has been very involved in agricultural policy, international development and opposing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food, she notes.
While Dorosz says she’s also involved in agriculture, opposes GMOs and wants sustainable farmland herself, Dorosz believes she’s more focused on issues affecting local families and seniors.
“We need to look after ‘us’ before we help everybody else,” said Dorosz, suggesting her focus will be more local.
Dorosz thinks the proposed national park reserve in the South Okanagan-Lower Similkameen will become an issue in next May’s election.
Larson is a staunch opponent.
“I think it’s really important for the endangered species, for the environment, for ecotourism, for jobs,” said Dorosz, adding that she wants to see the area around Mount Kobau included in the park.
Nonetheless, she said she welcomes the chance to talk to park opponents and to hear their concerns.
Provincially, she would like to see affordable daycare.
And, she supports a $15 minimum wage, while acknowledging she’s heard concerns from farmers about the impact of such a policy, and says it would have to be phased in.
“But I do feel that we need it,” she said. “We have too many families and children living in poverty.”
She’s also concerned about health care and fears that the construction of the new patient tower at Penticton Regional Hospital could be used as a pretext to close South Okanagan General Hospital in Oliver.
“I will fight tooth and nail to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Dorosz said.
If health officials think that’s an idle threat, they might learn otherwise from their counterparts at School District 53.
RICHARD McGUIRE
Osoyoos Times
