British Columbia’s next provincial election may be 362 days away, but it already has its first social media controversy.
On Tuesday night, Burnaby realtor and B.C. Liberal Party board member Randy Rinaldo was selected as his party’s candidate in Burnaby-Lougheed.
By Wednesday afternoon, a series of tweets made by Rinaldo earlier this decade were making the rounds.
By now, this is a standard part of any election cycle—a candidate’s past statements are uncovered, outrage mounts on social media, and generally, the candidate becomes an ex-candidate.
READ MORE: How parties vet candidates, and why they sometimes miss important things
But there are several things in this incident—beyond the obvious incendiary nature of the tweets—that are noteworthy. First and foremost, the Liberal Party says they’re keeping Rinaldo, and implied they were at least somewhat aware that his past tweets could be an issue.
Second, these incidents often happen with long-shot candidates, where a party has low expectations for winning, and consequently spends less time ensuring a candidate’s online past is squeaky clean.
That isn’t the case with Rinaldo though. The Liberals held Burnaby-Lougheed from 2009 to 2013, and lost the seat to the NDP by just 743 votes last election—and that was with an independent, Conservative Party-affiliated candidate named Christine Clarke receiving 1,399 votes.
In other words, this is one of 20 or ridings around B.C. that will likely determine the next government—and at this point, the Liberals are prepared to stick with a person whose first major introduction to the public will come via these past statements.
Finally, it bears repeating that this happened a full year before the election, and less than 24 hours after Rinaldo was chosen by his party.
Between the Liberals, NDP, and Green Party, more than 170 non-incumbent candidates are going to be selected. How many times will this mini-news cycle repeat itself? And how will the NDP or Greens respond if it happens to one of their hopefuls?
Partisans seem certainly ready to duke things out candidate by candidate, as evidenced by a particularly heated exchange between Vision Vancouver school board trustee Patti Bacchus and NPA Vancouver city councillor Melissa De Genova on Twitter.
Whether voters will be as passionate, this far out from the election, remains to be seen.
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