While the provincial government’s future is undetermined, BC NDP’s reign in Powell River-Sunshine Coast has passed to a new MLA-in-waiting.
Political newcomer Randene Neill has won Powell River-Sunshine Coast, stepping into the shoes of Nicholas Simons, a former BC NDP cabinet minister who held the seat for 19 years.
The preliminary count puts Neill at 49.4 per cent of the vote. BC Conservatives’ Chris Moore hauled in 35.9 per cent of the vote, BC Greens’ Chris Hergesheimer pulled in 13.5 per cent of the vote and Greg Reid got 1.2 per cent of the vote.
In a victory speech just before 10 p.m. Saturday evening, Neill thanked her campaign staff who she said had worked their “butts off” for the campaign. “Now the real work begins,” she told them. “But from the bottom of my heart, it takes a village, and you guys created that for me.”
“We are now leading a … riding that represents everybody,” she said. “Not just the people who voted NDP. So we have to reach out to everybody, be inclusive, bring us together and go forward together.”
Neill said when her team finished campaigning she knew they did their best adding that they kept up the momentum she was hoping for on election night.
Neill, a former journalist for Global BC, won the riding’s hotly contested BC NDP nomination in June. She ran against a former mayor, the regional school board chair, the president of the regional teachers association and a high school student.
Addressing her supporters Saturday evening, Neill said, “Thank you for working so hard, thank you for taking us over the edge, thank you for making this a hopeful, upbeat, inclusive campaign.”
Calling the campaign a “huge effort,” Neill is looking forward to the future.
The full-time Pender Harbour resident since 2020 told Coast Reporter when she was nominated that she decided to step up in part because she was concerned with the division in the community over issues like the shíshálh swiya dock management and Powell River name change, and spoke of the need to come together. During the campaign, she highlighted affordability, healthcare and housing as her top issues.
It’s the end of the Simons era. In 2005, Simons won the seat lately held by BC Liberal MLA Harold Long (who did not run for re-election that year) with 43.45 per cent of the vote. In the four elections to follow, Simons would not fail to haul in at least half the votes – peaking at 58 per cent of the vote in 2009 – and over his five elections amassing more than 60,000 ballots cast in his favour. Simons announced last year he would not be running for re-election, saying it was a good time for someone new to take up the role. “It’s time for a different challenge or for a little bit of a break,” he told Coast Reporter at the time. (Simons was a commentator on CityTV for election night.)
Before Long’s tenure, former BC Liberal leader Gordon Wilson held the seat for three terms for the BC Liberals, Progressive Democratic Alliance and BC NDP respectively.
Jordan Copp is the Coast Reporter’s civic and Indigenous affairs reporter. This reporting beat is made possible by the Local Journalism Initiative.
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