- Incumbent: Lorne Doerkson (Conservative | 2020)
- Candidates:
- NDP: Michael Moses
- Conservative: Lorne Doerkson
- Results:
- Liberal – 52%
- NDP – 32%
- Green – 11%
- Other – 5%
- Description:
- Once a battleground between the 1990s and the 2000s, Cariboo-Chilcotin has bolted to the right after NDP MLA Charlie Wyse lost by 88 votes in 2009. He was defeated by Mayor Donna Barnett of 100 Mile House, who had spent 16 years on the job. Now back on municipal council, Barnett is still an influential powerbroker behind the scenes, having pressured United MLA and caucus chair Lorne Doerkson to cross the floor this May.
- Having unleashed a floor-crossing cavalcade that marked the beginning of the end for BC United, Lorne Doerkson is now sitting pretty as the sole centre-right standard bearer in the riding. He hails from Williams Lake, which makes up almost half the riding’s population, and has suburbs that routinely give the BC Liberals northwards of 60% of the vote.
- The NDP has seen its performance slip in the riding ever since the 2013 election, when then-leader Adrian Dix was tarred as anti-resource development. Williams Lake’s dependence on forestry and ranching to keep its economy alive didn’t exactly make the party’s green shift very appealing, to say the least. To pry loose the right’s grip on the city, the New Democrats are fielding city councillor Michael Moses, who, unlike the last nominee in the riding, actually lives in it.
- Other communities along Highway 97 such as Hundred Mile House lean Liberal as well - and to make matters more complicated for the NDP, the new redistribution of the riding has added rural communities previously in Fraser-Nicola into the riding. With the consolidation of the right behind one candidate, Doerkson should be sleeping more easily than he did a few months ago.
Hugh Chan is a second year student at UBC studying International Relations and Data Science. You can find more coverage of the 2024 BC election as well as politics across East Asia and the Anglosphere at https://x.com/shxnhugh.
