By Richard McGuire
Colleen Ross is struck by the disparities between poverty and wealth as she travels throughout Boundary-Similkameen in her campaign to become the NDP MLA.
“I’m door knocking every day and everywhere from places where people are quite comfortable to manufactured home parks,” said Ross.
Ross campaigned over the fall to win her party’s nomination in January and has been campaigning hard ever since in a bid to knock off incumbent MLA Linda Larson of the B.C. Liberals.
She runs an organic farm near Grand Forks and is a first-term municipal councillor in that city.
“We live in a very diverse environment,” said Ross. “What I’m seeing, which is a real tragedy, is in these communities there are people living in borderline poverty and people with extreme wealth and this sense of entitlement that comes across over and over again.”
Ross said she hears from “entitled” people who don’t want to pay taxes, believe gas should be cheap, they shouldn’t have to pay carbon taxes and shouldn’t have to care about education and the fact that children with special needs aren’t getting the attention they need.
“I’m a little disappointed in people’s attitudes,” she said. “That’s not new to me or a surprise, obviously. I’m engaging with more and more people every single day I’m talking to them.”
She recounts one story of knocking on the door of a woman in a manufactured home park that she didn’t wish to name.
“She was still completely lucid in her thoughts and mobile,” said Ross, choking up with emotion. “She was committing assisted suicide because she couldn’t get the care she needed. She’s been through a recession, a depression and two world wars and now she can’t get the care she needs.”
The woman, who had serious health problems, was in the process or shredding her papers. She told Ross she wouldn’t be alive on Election Day.
“I’m not saying, ‘You can go to the early polls.’ Right away I’m reaching out and saying, ‘What can I do for you right now? What do you need?’”
Ross said she recognized an MLA can’t necessarily stop this kind of thing from happening, but it raises issues about how we care for our elders.
Ross has been running a frugal campaign. While Larson has four campaign offices, Ross has just two – one in Grand Forks and one in Oliver.
Larson was first out of the gate with pricier wood-framed campaign signs along the highways from Christina Lake to Tulameen. Ross was later getting her signs out and they’re mostly the cheaper wire and plastic bag type.
She admits she doesn’t have the same resources as her B.C. Liberal opponent.
“We’ve had to fundraise every cent we have,” she said, pointing out that instead of corporate donations, she’s relied on many small donations of $5 to $20.
“I have some of the most successful business people in this riding that are behind me, but I’m more humbled by the student who gives us $5,” she said, pointing to a young University of Victoria political science student who contributed $5 online.
Behind the campaign is a dedicated team of volunteers and a few staff people, including campaign manager Jessica Smith.
“I have everybody from young people who aren’t even old enough to vote who want to go out door knocking, to seniors who have mobility issues, but just want to do something they are so desperate for change,” she said.
Ross hears from people about many issues including the cost of living at a time of high costs for ICBC (auto insurance), MSP premiums (health insurance), and electricity rates.
“People are feeling like that elastic band that you just are pulling as tight as you can,” she said. “If you go that little bit further, it’s just going to break.”
Healthcare is definitely a big issue, she said, in particular access to timely and responsive healthcare.
Concern about employment, especially youth employment, is another.
“Environment is a big one,” she adds. “I was surprised how many people are concerned about the devastation of the environment in British Columbia. People are asking me about the Site C Dam, about (the) Kinder Morgan (pipeline) and the coastlines.”
On environment, Ross points out that she is one of just six B.C. candidate from all parties who is endorsed by GreenPAC, a non-partisan environmental political action organization.
Asked about her opponents, Ross calls Green Party candidate Vonnie Lavers “a wonderful woman,” but said her own environmental background is “super solid.”
On independent candidate Dr. Peter Entwistle, she says she spoke to him and they want the same things for healthcare.
“His vision for healthcare is no different to the vision of the NDP,” she said. “In order for people to get what he’s talking about, they need to have an NDP government. Voting for Peter will not get you what Peter is talking about.”
She takes issue with Entwistle’s plan to serve as MLA while continuing his medical practice and his assertion that being an MLA is not a full-time job.
“Good luck with that,” she said. “He will not be able to serve his patients and the over 18 communities in this huge riding and that’s problematic. I don’t think it’s respectful to our constituents.”
On Larson, she uses the term “abdicating responsibility.”
This, she said, was illustrated by Larson’s hands-off approach when Osoyoos Secondary School (OSS) was faced with closure last year.
“That shouldn’t have happened,” she said. “Pitting communities against one another instead of bringing people together.”
People are changing their votes away from the B.C. Liberals because of a feeling of betrayal,” she said.
Ross added that she’s not allowing herself to feel confident and will keep running hard until the May 9 election.
“I like to think that I’m always 10 votes behind,” she said.
