A second BC United MLA has announced plans to run as an independent following the party’s collapse weeks before the provincial election.
Tom Shypitka confirmed he would make the run in the Kootenay Rockies riding in a video posted to Facebook on Wednesday.
Shypitka said the BC Conservatives initially offered him the opportunity to run in the riding, contingent on their current candidate shifting to Columbia River-Revelstoke.
“That didn’t happen,” he said.
Shypitka said he spent the weekend as a “nervous wreck” and a “political orphan,” but decided to run as an independent after receiving hundreds of emails, text messages and phone calls.
“There’s a lot of things that come with an independent: there’s increased accountability, you’ve got freedom of party lines … you can focus on those strong local issues – bring them to Victoria,” he said.
He said he believes that with the province’s fractured political landscape, independents may hold the balance of power in the legislature.
“We don’t really know who the BC Conservatives are. I know some good people there, but we’ve got 94 candidates coming up, we’ve got a leader who’s only a year in … I don’t know what that’s going to look like,” he said.
“I don’t want to get involved with a bunch of folks, as good as they may intend … to find out I might be in the wrong spot.”
The move comes one week after BC United Leader Kevin Falcon announced he was suspending the party’s campaign and threw his support behind John Rustad’s BC Conservatives.
That decision followed months of defections and slumping poll numbers.
BC United Peace River South MLA Mike Bernier confirmed his plans to run as an independent on Tuesday.
Bernier said he did not want to “bend” his morals and values by running with the provincial Conservatives, describing some of the party’s candidates as holding views that are “anti-women’s rights, anti-climate change” and “anti-First Nations.”
Bernier had said previously that he might run as a B.C. Conservative if asked, but noted when announcing his decision to go independent that he “never spoke to them at all.”
BC United Peace River North MLA Dan Davies has called a press conference for Thursday to announce his plans. He and Cariboo North MLA Coralee Oakes are the only remaining BC United incumbents who have yet to declare their intentions following the party’s collapse.
A joint list of 140 previously endorsed BC United and BC Conservative candidates is being whittled down to fit the 93 ridings up for grabs, and three United MLAs — Ian Paton, Peter Milobar and Trevor Halford — on Tuesday announced they were running as Conservatives.
The shake-up has also meant the shuffling and, in some cases, the dropping of former B.C. Conservative candidates in favour of those from BC United.
Dupinder Kaur Saran has said she is also planning to run as an independent in Surrey-Panorama after losing party endorsement.
Kevin Acton, the mayor of Lumby and the former BC United candidate in the Vernon-Lumby riding, also announced he would be running as an independent after losing his endorsement in the shuffle.
– with files from The Canadian Press