Cullen culled as part of the BC interior blue wave

Here in BC, following our recent provincial election on Saturday, October 19, 2024 both the BC Conservatives and provincial New Democrats remain virtually tied. The Greens may once again hold the balance of power with two seats. A handful of ridings are still too close to call given the number of mail-in ballots remaining to be counted, and due to polling re-assignments. Nail-biting continues.

One riding result not in question is that of Bulkley Valley-Stikine presently held by Nathan Cullen. An article in The Tyee explains the reasons for, and the consequences of a change in representation in this riding:

“B.C.’s electoral map is looking significantly bluer this week, in large part because the province’s biggest riding, Bulkley Valley-Stikine in the northwest, flipped from NDP to Conservative over the weekend . . .

It was an upset for NDP incumbent Nathan Cullen, who was first elected to the B.C. legislature in 2020 but previously spent 15 years representing the region as a federal member of Parliament. Most recently, he was B.C.’s minister of water, land and resource stewardship.

Cullen is among several cabinet ministers who were unseated as the current BC NDP government teeters in an incredibly tight election race. The party is currently favoured to win 46 seats with the upstart Conservatives taking 45 seats and the BC Greens winning two.

As the count crept up steadily in favour of Bulkley Valley-Stikine Conservative candidate Sharon Hartwell on Saturday evening, Cullen didn’t wait for the official word before telling supporters he would call his opponent and wish her well.

‘It’s an incredibly difficult and demanding job in a particularly complex part of the world, and we want our elected representatives to be successful,’ Cullen said during a concession speech at his Smithers campaign office on Saturday evening.

He added that there was ‘an underlying tension and grievance’ throughout the campaign that ‘I don’t think reflected the best of the northwest. I think we, as New Democrats, as progressive people, responded with consistent grace and integrity,’ he said.

Cullen’s defeat comes after a difficult campaign in Bulkley Valley-Stikine, where Cullen saw roughly half his election signs stolen or destroyed in the weeks leading up to the Oct. 19 election.

As Cullen gave his concession speech late Saturday evening, he was repeatedly drowned out by a pickup truck flying a Canadian flag and blasting its horn on the street outside the campaign office.

Hartwell, who previously served 12 years as mayor of Telkwa, has repeatedly praised organizers of the ‘Freedom Convoy,’ which gridlocked downtown Ottawa for a month in early 2022, as ‘an inspiration’ and has called for the firing of provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and said that ‘those who pushed the vaccine should be held accountable.’ She has also supported calls for Canada to withdraw from the United Nations and the World Health Organization and falsely stated that former U.S. president Donald Trump won the last American election.

Speaking with The Tyee on Monday, Cullen expressed concern about some of the extreme views expressed by Conservative candidates. ‘Grievances were felt and legitimate, but the very empty solutions offered are going to be very disappointing.’

The Tyee article cites other challenges that contributed to Cullen’s defeat. “Cullen faced criticism earlier this year as his NDP government attempted to make amendments to the province’s Land Act that would bring the legislation into alignment with B.C.’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act” (DRIPA). Cullen speaks of ‘a backlash on reconciliation and that perhaps the government needs to do more and deeper work in bringing non-Indigenous folks along in the conversation,” he said. Reconciliation is “a complex topic that has many, many different facets that are hard to reduce it to a simple message,” he said.

Of the Conservative plan for Indigenous land relations, Hartwell says she is ‘committed to revisiting the DRIPA.” Conservative leader John Rustad says the  B.C. legislation ‘would be used as a “guiding principle.’ In other words, just talk, no teeth.

Nathan Cullen’s positive legacy is assured amongst the many thousands of people he has represented in both provincial and federal arenas. I can only add my own appreciative voice and likewise lament the loss of his legislative presence.