John Weston was again chosen to represent the Conservative Party West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea-to-Sky riding following four nomination meetings Friday to Sunday (Jan. 5 to 7).
Weston and Dave Thomas - a West Vancouver lawyer who was influential in the 2003 "unite the right" movement of the Progressive Conservatives and Canadian Alliance parties - were the lone candidates in the nomination vote, which is among the first to be held in the country.
Meeting organizer David Bromley said the party does not divulge the number of votes each candidate receives, but a North Vancouver political blog reported that Weston won 601 votes to Thomas's 347.
Just over 1,000 party members attended the weekend's four meetings held in Powell River, Sechelt, Squamish and West Vancouver. The turnout is four times larger than the last Tory nomination meeting held in 2004, which saw Weston elected to replace retiring longtime Conservative MP John Reynolds.
"This is huge for our riding and demonstrates the commitment and organization of the Conservative family in our riding," said Weston. "I think it bodes well for the next election because we have great momentum in the Sea to Sky corridor and throughout the riding."
But turnout for the Sea to Sky corridor's meeting, held in Squamish Saturday (Jan. 6), saw only approximately 30 party delegates, which led even Thomas to question why so few attended.
Bromley declined to divulge the number of votes from each of the riding's regions, but did say the Tories saw a stronger presence in Sechelt than in Powell River and the Sea to Sky corridor.
Bromley said the corridor turnout was the smallest of the four meetings and speculated that the area's party members may have been more interested in attending the final West Vancouver meeting, held Sunday (Jan. 7), since that's where the winner would be announced.
The day after the announcement, Thomas sent out his last words of the campaign to supporters via email.
"It was a lot of hard work, but very worthwhile," he wrote. "We had fun and I made a lot of great friends along the way.Thank you so much to everyone for your support."
Another question that arose during the vote was over the decision to close the meetings to everyone but party members. Both candidates told that they were unaware the meetings would be in-camera, and Thomas campaign organizer Marc Strongman also expressed confusion.
"It doesn't make a lot of sense to me," said Strongman. "You would think [the media] should be allowed in."
Bromley said the meetings are closed in order to allow each candidate to properly weaken their opponent's position without smearing them in the media, thus weakening the party image once a federal election is called.
Despite the seemingly guarded nature the party displayed during the nomination process, Weston said his election platform will revolve around accountability and integrity.
"I think the key issues are going to be integrity and inclusiveness," he said. "I will continue on issues of integrity and accountability both in terms of our government responding to constituents."
Weston said the riding's current Liberal MP Blair Wilson has been inadequate in representing the interests of the region.
"He voted against the softwood lumber agreement, which has been supported by lumber companies throughout the province and local officials. He voted against the GST cut and against the use of surplus to pay down the debt," said Weston. "These things are not in the interest of people who want smaller government and lower taxes."
Weston said in the two years since his last nomination, he's had an opportunity to create personal relationships with each community - a sentiment he felt especially keenly during the nomination meetings.
"As the voters came into the four nomination meetings, I really felt that I knew many of them individually, so each vote represented a relationship, something I've worked on before," he said.
Weston speculates that a federal election will be held "likely this year" after the federal budget vote in the spring.
Bromley wouldn't speculate on a date for the next federal election, but laughed: "I hope it's not soon. I'm exhausted."
