Colleen Ross (left) beams with happiness as her name is announced as the provincial NDP candidate for Boundary-Similkameen. To the right, Brenda Dorosz, who was defeated in the two-woman contest, applauds politely. (Richard McGuire photo)
Boundary-Similkameen NDP members elected Grand Forks city councillor Colleen Ross on Sunday to face incumbent MLA Linda Larson in the May 9 provincial election.
Ross defeated Brenda Dorosz by an undisclosed number of votes. Dorosz was known for leading the fight to save Osoyoos Secondary School (OSS), but compared to Ross, she was a newcomer to partisan politics.
The vote was limited to those who were NDP members prior to mid-October and the number of eligible votes was somewhere between 200 and 300 people. Most voted in advance by mail, and the party immediately voted to destroy the ballots.
Nonetheless, about 70 members came to the Oliver Community Centre to hear speeches from the candidates and from guest speaker MLA Harry Bains from Surrey-Newton.
After being declared the winner, Ross urged New Democrats to be united.
“We are all part of the strands to make a strong rope, to work in solidarity,” she said, paraphrasing a saying from the Okanagan Nation. “We need to remain focused, we need to defeat the Liberals in this constituency, in this province. We need to win our province back, we need to win our country back. We need to show the rest of the world that we’re not going to follow the neoconservative trend. We care about each other.”
Dorosz appeared deeply disappointed by the result, but she remained composed as supporters came up to hug her and offer words of encouragement.
“It’s just one step on the journey going forward and I’m not going to stop,” she said. “We’ve got lots of projects going forward. And we still need to beat Linda Larson.”
Asked if she would be actively working to support Ross’s campaign, she was noncommittal.
“We’ll see in the future what happens,” Dorosz said.
Nonetheless, she wished Ross good luck moving forward.
Dorosz said she didn’t have other immediate plans, but needed to take stock of what happened. She did say, however, that she will be working on obtaining a national park in the South Okanagan.
In speeches that took place before the votes were counted, Dorosz, who spoke first, talked off the cuff about how she and members of the Osoyoos community saved OSS.
“We really just brought the Liberals to their knees,” she said. “They couldn’t deal with us anymore.”
As a result, they brought in special rural education funding that ended up saving other schools, she said.
Dorosz also spoke of her family connections with most parts of the constituency and about growing up in Osoyoos, as well as her involvement with the irrigation district.
She talked about the encouragement to run that she received from such people as NDP Education Critic Rob Fleming, and about her grassroots work with projects such as the Osoyoos Gift Cupboard.
Ross acknowledged that she moved to the Boundary region several years ago, coming from Ontario.
“Unlike Brenda, I’m not from here,” she said. “I consider myself a citizen of the world. I’ve travelled all over this world working in many countries for civil society organizations.”
While she addressed some local issues such as forestry and agreeing with Dorosz about support for a national park, Ross spent much of her time attacking international trade agreements that she said are being driven by a neoconservative agenda.
She took aim at Premier Christy Clark’s support for the Kinder Morgan pipeline, and at the neoconservative undermining of people’s livelihoods, environment and healthcare system.
And she also spoke of her past involvement as vice president of the National Farmers Union of Canada and her efforts on the international front to fight “terminator technology” which makes seeds sterile at the time of harvest so that farmers need to buy new seeds every year.
When riding association president Rhonda Bruce announced the results, she commended both Ross and Dorosz.
“I’ve always been a strong advocate for women, so I probably drove the executive crazy how many times I said I’m so proud of these two women,” said Bruce.
RICHARD McGUIRE
Osoyoos Times
Colleen Ross speaks to NDP members after being announced as the winner of the nomination contest in Boundary-Similkameen. She urged members to work in love and solidarity and to win back the constituency. (Richard McGuire photo)
Roughly 70 people turned out at the NDP nomination meeting at the Oliver Community Centre on Sunday. (Richard McGuire photo)
Colleen Ross (left) speaks to NDP members before the vote at Sunday’s nomination meeting. To the right are Brenda Dorosz and riding association president Rhonda Bruce. (Richard McGuire photo)
