By Don Urquhart, Times Chronicle
The newly minted Liberal Party of Canada candidate for the Similkameen – South Okanagan – West Kootenay Gloria Morgan was acclaimed to the position at the end of March and al- though from the North Okanagan she’s confident that will be no barrier to her representing the vast southern riding.
“My home is in the North Okanagan, and I was hoping that they would con- sider me for that riding. But process is process, and I had to look for another riding to run in, and I would have gone to Northeastern British Columbia or wherever they needed a Liberal candidate,” she told the Times Chronicle adding that she is a passionate Liberal.
Her home riding of Vernon – Lake Country – Monashee is being represented for the Liberal party by Anna Warwick Sears who was acclaimed as candidate for the Liberal party after running un- successfully for the provincial NDP last fall.
Warwick Sears will likely be familiar to many from her through her role as Executive Director of the Okanagan Basin Water Board for 19 years.
“I would have done whatever needed to be done, because it’s a critical time in our country, because of the threats from the south, but also because of climate change,” Morgan said.
Morgan – a former RCMP officer, lawyer, crown prosecutor, Chief of the Splatsin First Nation and residential school survivor (she was part of the “Sixties Scoop”) amongst many other things including sitting on several boards such as the provincial Health Services Authority, the BC forensic Services Commission and the Okanagan College Board of Governors – is hopeful the rising Liberal Party fortunes will be reflected in BC as well.
She cites anecdotal examples of the rising tide of liberal support that she says has reached the Okanagan. She references a group of five buddies she met recently. The group meets two or three times a week for coffee and the local scuttlebutt and have always voted Conservative, except for this time. “This time, they’re all voting Liberal,” she said, adding this is just one many examples she’s observed.
While broader national trends may be forming, the local riding is more difficult to parse and certainly challenges are manifold.
But this clearly plays to her strengths as life has thrown many challenges and opportunities at Morgan. Growing up life was not easy, she says, with residential school, working in an orchard at age 12, and living in a home with a dirt floor which her mother had her sweep.
She’s also lost many that have been near and dear to her, including her daughter who died at age 17.
But her indigenous culture gives her strength she says, even if she was denied much of the cultural nourishment early on in life.
At 48 she picked up a drum for the first time and now singing and drum- ming makes not only her happy but others happy too.
At the District Wine Village meet and greet on Sunday, April 13 she shared her love of drum and song with the assembled crowd.
“It gives me strength to know that the Creator, is all around. I say all my relations . . . meaning everything from the rocks, the dirt and the waters, everything in the sun, all of those things are so important,” she says. And so too is her Catholic faith which despite her residential school experience is still important to her.
She also emphasizes that as an elder, when she makes a promise, it is a promise she keeps.
Morgan also relishes transferring knowledge – whether it be tanning hides, making moccasins, pickling or cedar and pine needle baskets – “whenever I learn a skill I find one of my nieces – I call them my nice but some of them are blond and blue-eyed,” she laughs.
“I teach them because it builds strength,” she says adding that she’s talked about reconciliation and residential schools and the sources of her strength to not just school kids, but senior civil servants too.
And she’s also keenly competitive, particularly at golf where she was involved for two years playing in the BC Indigenous Golf Championships, playing against teams made up of players less than a quarter of her age.
Gloria Morgan (pictured above) held two meet and greets in Osoyoos on Saturday, Apr. 12 in Osoyoos and on Sunday, Apr. 13 in Oliver at the District Wine Village.
Don Urquhart photo
When asked what impact being Indigenous would have on her campaign she says: “I’ve served on all levels of boards, both recreation, health, justice, police, all of that.
“That’s my professional life, and if voters have confidence in me that I can represent them at this level of government, when I had experience at the other two levels, then they have to weigh that themselves. Is my brown skin and black hair making a difference to them?
“The cultural part is what makes me strong, I call it the success, but I think the experience and everything else I’ve done is what people need to look at.”
She is a provincial NDP “because I don’t have a choice,” but at the federal level she’s been a Liberal for over 30 years” she says when asked whether she foresees her clearly capable entry into this riding’s race as potentially splitting the Liberal/NDP vote and handing a win to the Conservatives.
“I look at Jagmeet [Singh] and realistically, is he even going to win his own riding? I don’t know. The polls don’t look so good,” she adds.
“So if people here think that voting NDP is really important, and other people think Liberals are, then the Conservatives might be a big player, I don’t know.”
“But if the NDP can see the writing on the wall that the polls are showing them, then perhaps the people who are NDP – a little bit more central leaning – should vote Liberal, because according to polls we will form the next government,” she says.
“Is it better to have someone on the very back benches with very little say, or is it better to have someone in government who’s willing to listen?” Should she win the seat Morgan says she will represent every person in the riding regardless of their political allegiance.
As for Pierre Poileivre, “when I hear some of the things that he says, I think they’re very foolish things,” she says citing as an example his making fun of the Okanagan as “the best part of Alberta”. This she says, “is offensive and insulting to so many. I don’t hear Carney saying things like that. You don’t hear me saying that.”
