Westshore MLA is out

Only one local incumbent remains. Gruelling ultramarathon up Mt. Finlayson. Colwood conflict-of-interest policy.

Hello there!

Thank you for your messages so far this week, and I look forward to hearing more of your ideas about what we should cover this fall. An answer I heard a few times has been, of course, the fall BC election. We have an update on that below, and will have regular coverage until election day (Oct. 19).

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NEWS

Esquimalt-Metchosin MLA Mitzi Dean’s withdrawal leaves just one Westshore incumbent

Mitzi Dean won't run for a third term. Photo: BC Gov Flickr

The two-term incumbent local NDP MLA is withdrawing her candidacy just 50 days before the fall election, she announced on Saturday.

Dean said the decision was one of her most difficult ones because she valued representing the community, but that she “must put my health and the wellbeing of my family first.” She cited “personal challenges of this past year” that have taken a toll on her. Dean was removed from her role as Minister of Children and Family Development after a damning report about the ministry's operations and a high-profile case of an Indigenous child being tormented, and eventually killed, in foster care.

Premier David Eby said in the same release that he “agree[s] with those reasons” why Dean is leaving, and wishes her “the best with the difficult personal work she has ahead.” He said Dean will immediately be on leave from her second-tier ministerial role and won't return during the three weeks left in her term. The BC NDP will soon have an update on the riding nomination, he said.

This leaves last year’s landslide byelection winner Ravi Parmar as the only Westshore incumbent

Parmar's single year as MLA is now the only provincial experience on offer on the Westshore. As recently as last spring, the region had 24 years in office between Horgan and Dean.

The oversized former Horgan riding is now being split up, and Parmar choosing the Langford-Highlands spinoff means that there will be no incumbent in Juan de Fuca-Malahat. Parmar's former byelection opponent Camille Currie of the Greens is now running in Esquimalt-Colwood (the new version of Esquimalt-Colwood), and the Dean resignation and BC United collapse have left her temporarily as the only major candidate.

BC United folds campaign, leaving local candidates behind

Meagan Brame, former Esquimalt councillor and the BCU nominee for Esquimalt-Colwood, told the Times Colonist that she got news of her campaign ending from a campaign worker's text, not the party itself. BCU’s Herb Haldane, a former Sooke councillor, was weighing options but wary of throwing in with the “conspiracy stuff” in the BCC.

With those ex-councillors’ campaigns defunct, the only non-Parmar Westshore candidate with any government experience is current Sooke councillor Dana Lajeunesse, running for the NDP in Juan de Fuca-Malahat.

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EVENTS

Runners tackle Mount Finlayson in gruelling ultramarathon this weekend

Lindsay Cristante running through Finlayson Arm, with a smile. (📸 Matt Cecill, contributed)

If you’ve ever hiked Mount Finlayson, you’ll know how steep the elevation gain is—if you haven’t, imagine climbing a skyscraper at a slight angle. Quickly. That’s the first peak, and there are five more after it on the main race course of the Finlayson, an annual extreme endurance run that returns to the Westshore this weekend.

If you're doing the standard 50km (technically 52.5km) race, at least you'll get to do all of that in daylight. But for the full ultramarathon (previously 100km and now 50miles/82km), bring a head lamp. You'll be running in the dark at the start this year and, if you aren't fast enough, at the end too.

There's also a shorter 28km for the more reasonable runners—and “The Double,” a multi-day combination of the 82 and the 28, for the even more unreasonable ones.

Competitors will run in streams, over roots and loose rocks, rising up to 4,000m in elevation, sucking on electrolyte goo to keep their bodies fuelled. As for their minds, that’s where the real marathon takes place.

How do these endurance runners, well, endure?

“I remind myself of how lucky I am to be physically and mentally healthy enough to accomplish this,” 50km runner Tanya Seal-Jones told The Westshore before the 2022 race. Her other key to staying motivated: getting enough snacks.

Lindsay Cristante also takes time to appreciate that she's able to run, and that she's getting time in nature. And when races take the better part of a day, there's even time to socialize with nearby runners.

“In these races you meet people that you are forever connected with because you've had this shared experience,” she said.

Get the details on this weekend's event here.

Read Zoe Ducklow’s full previous feature on the race here.

Around the 'Shore

💵 Colwood will vote on restricting gifts from developers: A proposed policy would require councillors to recuse themselves from city business involving any developer from whom (or from whose associate) they have received $25+. [VicNews] Monday’s vote comes two years after developers’ past campaign contributions to Colwood councillors became a hot-button election issue.

🔌 New electric car chargers at Sooke mall: BC Hydro’s new Evergreen Centre chargers can give the average e-vehicle 180km of driving after 10 minutes of charging—or act as 90-kilowatt-hour chargers for two cars at once. [Sooke]

🚂 Federal supply and confidence deal ends, primarily over rail labour dispute: The federal NDP, which includes Esquimalt - Saanich - Sooke’s outgoing Randall Garrison and Cowichan - Malahat - Langford’s Alistair MacGregor, will end a deal to support the Liberals that was to last to June 2025. This may not mean a federal election; the party could still support the government case-by-case. [CBC]

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Community Events

🥞 Sooke Fall Fair: This year’s theme is Water is Life. Sat 11:30am-6pm. Sun 9am-5pm beginning with a pancake breakfast.

🚵‍♀️ Langford Bike Fest: A community sports fest based around the mountain bike “pre-race” at Jordie Lunn Park this weekend on the courses that will be used for the 2025 Canadian Mountain Bike Championships.

🌇 This summer’s final Thursday Night Market at Sooke Region Museum. Crafts, flavours, and entertainers. 5-8pm.

🐑 Metchosin Day: The “infamous Pet Show” kicks off Sunday’s annual community event at 11am. Then sheep shearing demos, 4-H judging, a photo contest, and the community awards. Ends 5:30pm. 

🚒 Colwood firefighters host open house on Sunday. Tour the trucks & museum, meet the firefighters & fire dog, and check out the hose & target station. 

What’s Offshore?

CCGS John P. Tully photo from 2019 via Canadian Coast Guard (Facebook)

No big ships are anchored right now, but here are a few that passed by yesterday:

⛴ The 1984-built John P. Tully—named for the prominent 20th-century oceanographer—is one of the Coast Guard’s small handful of research ships. It passed by the Westshore after leaving Patricia Bay yesterday to head to what appears to be the Island’s West Coast (WCVI). The vessel is often used by Ocean Networks Canada, sometimes to maintain the North East Pacific Time-series Undersea Networked Experiments (NEPTUNE) observatory in west-Island waters.

🚢 The Cape Rainbow is a bulk carrier built in 2012 and is sailing under the flag of Panama. It just left 🇨🇦 Roberts Bank, Canada and is slated to reach 🇯🇵Kisarazu, Japan in 16 days.

Westshore Snaps

“Rufous Hummingbirds travel nearly 4,000 miles from Alaska and northwest Canada breeding grounds to wintering sites in Mexico. They travel north up the Pacific Coast in spring and return by the Rocky Mountains in late summer and fall.”

– Gary Woodburn

📸 Snapped a photo you’d like to share? Send it with a caption and don’t forget to add where you live.

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