Mike Bernier announces intent to run as Independent candidate for Peace River South

DAWSON CREEK, B.C. — Current Peace River South MLA Mike Bernier says his journey isn’t over, despite last week’s announcement that the BC United Party was suspending its election campaign and wouldn’t run any candidates.

Bernier announced on Tuesday, September 3rd, that he intends to run for re-election as an Independent candidate in his riding.

“I am going to continue to run in my region,” Bernier said. “Nothing’s really changed, in a lot of ways, for myself. My entire campaign that I was running was more about, ‘re-elect Mike Bernier because of experience and the work that I’ve done, et cetera,’ anyway.”

He says this is because BC United leader Kevin Falcon only had the power to withdraw his party’s endorsement of its candidates — not remove them from the ballot altogether.

“Nothing’s changed. I’m still on the ballot. It just doesn’t say BC Liberal or BC United next to it, so that’s actually going to help me, I’m thinking.”

Bernier says there’s no fear of the Peace region sending an NDP MLA to Victoria, in either riding, so he’s comfortable running against the Conservatives to vote “for who they think will be the right person to fight for them in Victoria.”

He adds he was the only BC United MLA in Victoria when Kevin Falcon made the decision to suspend the campaign, behind closed doors.

“It is completely inappropriate for the people in the Peace region to be told by Kevin [Falcon] and John [Rustad] in a board room in Vancouver who their MLAs should be,” Bernier says. 

“You want to talk about democracy and freedom of choice; that is completely against everything that I stand for, which is also one of the reasons I’m still running.”

According to the BC Conservative Party website, its current candidate for Bernier’s riding is Larry Neufeld.

Jordan Kealy, meanwhile, is the Conservative candidate for Peace River North and told Energeticcity.ca on Friday, August 30th that he doesn’t plan on giving up his candidacy.

Dan Davies, the current MLA for Peace River North, hasn’t announced whether he will run for re-election as an Independent candidate.