- Incumbent: Shirley Bond (United | 2001)
- Candidates:
- NDP: Clay Pountney
- Conservative: Rosalyn Bird
- Green: Gwen Johansson
- Results:
- Liberal – 52%
- NDP – 29%
- Green – 16%
- Other – 3%
- Description:
- For the first time in more than two decades, residents of Prince George-Valemount will not be seeing Shirley Bond as a name on their ballot. Instead, the riding is now a showdown between three candidates - the NDP’s Clay Pountney, the Conservatives’ Rosalyn Bird, and the Greens’ Gwen Johansson.
- Of the three ridings with Prince George in the name, this one is certainly the most left-wing. Despite Shirley Bond’s stellar results in election after election, the federal Conservatives have struggled to reach a majority of the vote in the riding. Her personal brand clearly outweighs the overall strength of any party here.
- The NDP and the Greens will be looking to exploit that. Pountney is the former Chief of the Lheidli T'enneh First Nation, which overlaps with the City of Prince George, while Johansson is the former Mayor of Hudson’s Hope and has decades of municipal experience - albeit outside the riding. Valemount is also the most Green-friendly riding of the trio of PG districts, handing the party an impressive 16% of the vote in 2020.
- Rosalyn Bird will look to run up the margins in the Fraser-Fort George Regional District and other small towns like Valemount and McBridge in the Robson Valley, all the while remaining competitive in Prince George. What to watch for will be her performance relative to Bond’s past showings - it would be a hell of a feat for any MLA to build strength and a brand to rival the experienced incumbent’s.
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.
