Race for Sea to Sky’s federal Conservative nomination heats up

The next time Canadians head to the polls, Whistler resident Keith Roy wants to see his name listed on ballots across the corridor.

On Sept. 13, the realtor officially announced his plans to seek the federal Conservative nomination for the West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country riding. He’s the second candidate throwing his hat into the ring to represent the Tories ahead of the 45th Canadian federal election—set to take place on or before Oct. 20, 2025—after former West Vancouver Councillor Marcus Wong declared his intention to run for the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) earlier this month.

Liberal member of Parliament (MP) Patrick Weiler currently represents the Sea to Sky in the House of Commons. He won 2021’s election with 34 per cent of the vote, besting Conservative John Weston, a former MP who finished second with 30 per cent, and third-place NDP-er Avi Lewis, who earned 26 per cent of the riding’s votes.

Weiler succeeded fellow Liberal Pamela Goldsmith-Jones when voters first elected him to office in 2019. Weston was the last Conservative to hold the seat, from 2008 until his defeat in 2015.

Since Justin Trudeau’s Liberals rose to power eight years ago, “everything’s just so much worse than it used to be in Canada,” Roy said. “I’m in a unique position that I have both the ability and the skill set to, I think, accomplish this, and I think I can help.”

Born and raised in southwest B.C., Roy split his childhood between the North Shore, Powell River and Vancouver.

The first-time candidate comes armed with a Political Science degree from the University of Guelph. Roy has remained active in conservative politics since interning for a Canadian Alliance MP in 2001 (the right-wing Alliance merged with the Progressive Conservative Party in 2003 to form the existing CPC), mostly through volunteering for local campaigns in more recent years. That said, “I’m not running because I’m looking for my next job in politics,” Roy underscored.

Professionally, his primary focus over the last two decades has been building his real estate career in the Lower Mainland.

“I’ve never earned a dime of taxpayers money, and I’m particularly proud of that,” he added. Roy is still a team leader with Macdonald Realty and RE/MAX in Greater Vancouver, but moved full-time to Whistler with his wife Stephanie and their now-three-year-old son, Kai, in 2021.

From Roy’s perspective, Canada’s next federal election will revolve around national housing policies. “Housing is my life’s work,” he said.

Roy’s platform targets what he calls “The 5 Cs:” common sense, the carbon tax, congestion, crime, and climate.

In other words, Roy’s commitments include standing up to “woke nonsense” in Ottawa; easing pressure on the riding’s current infrastructure—“generational changes,” he acknowledged, like twinning and dividing the Sea to Sky highway, developing a new route from Squamish to Coquitlam and buying new ferries; putting “repeat offenders behind bars and invest[ing] in world-class drug recovery” rather than “handing out free drugs;” and finally, shipping Canadian-produced liquefied natural gas (LNG) overseas to help countries like China decrease coal consumption.

Ultimately, “What differentiates me from anyone else who might run, or has run in the past, is everybody else has been a West Vancouver person. And this riding is changing in April with re-distribution,” Roy pointed out.

Plans to re-draw B.C.’s federal election map were tabled in the House of Commons in July. The new boundaries expected to take effect next spring will remove West Vancouver’s main business district from the riding Weiler currently represents, looping it in with North Vancouver rather than Squamish, Whistler and Sechelt.

Without those North Shore voters, “it’s a very different riding,” said Roy. “It’s filled with young families, people who quite frankly have the same challenges I have, trying to figure out, ‘What do I do with my three-year-old during the day while I’m trying to go earn 50 cents on the dollar to pay my taxes?’”

But before Roy can take a run at Weiler and accomplish his goal of dismantling the Liberal government’s existing policies, he’ll have to convince his own party he’s the right man for the job.

In a release announcing his own intention to run, former West Van Coun. Wong said he wants to serve as MP to ensure “the Canadian Dream isn’t just a fantasy for this generation or the next.”

In particular, Wong pledged to fight to put tax dollars into his constituents’ pockets, arguing, “More red tape and government overspending won’t solve our problems.”

Vancouver-born Wong is a marketing and communications professional whose resume includes stints working for FortisBC/Terasen Gas, the Canadian Olympic Committee and the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Roy, meanwhile, is gearing up to host a series of meet-and-greets across the riding this fall. A Whistler event is scheduled for Sunday afternoon, Sept. 24. To learn more about the candidates, visit keithroy.ca and marcuswong.ca.

—With files from Jennifer Thuncher