Upset with British Columbia’s provincial government and COVID policies, a North Okanagan woman has launched a recall petition to try to unseat Vernon – Monashee NDP MLA Harwinder Sandhu.
Petitioners have two months to collect thousands of signatures and submit them to Elections BC.
However, halfway to the deadline, the organizer is not revealing how many signatures the petition has received.
“It is a little slow, slower than I thought, but we still have almost a month to go so I’m hopeful,” said Vernon resident Genevieve Ring who is spearheading the recall attempt.
To actually recall the MLA and trigger a byelection, the petitioners would need to collect signatures from at least 40 per cent of eligible voters in the riding. That’s more than 21,000 people.
Since 1995, Elections BC said there have been 26 other recall petition attempts. None have successfully unseated an MLA although in one case a politician resigned during the process.
Ring said her motivation for launching the recall attempt was her dissatisfaction with the provincial government overall.
“The government has overstepped its bounds and its legal requirements to govern. They don’t govern well. They’ve made a mess of everything they’ve touched. I can’t do anything about calling an election but the thing I can do is recall the local MLA,” said Ring.
In response to an interview request, Sandhu issued a statement.
“I remain unconcerned with the recall attempt that has been launched. I will continue to work to serve my constituents diligently and sincerely just as I have done since being elected,” said the MLA’s statement.
“This week my focus is on meetings at the Union of British Columbia Municipalities Annual Conference, and continuing to advocate for the people of Vernon-Monashee.”
In particular, Ring said she is concerned about health care and criticized provincial policies meant to curb the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ring argued the treatment of unvaccinated health care workers who were terminated has gone too far.
“Why would they not rehire those people who are trained and experienced? The reason is they didn’t do what the government told them to do,” Ring said.
Interior Health said the vaccine mandate helps protect the function of the overall healthcare system.
“Our health-care facilities provide care for our most vulnerable, at-risk residents, and it is important that Interior Health maintains layers of protection for them – which includes ensuring our workers are fully vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus,” the health authority said in a statement.
“As the Public Health Order mandating vaccination for health-care workers remains in place, we will not be seeking to re-hire employees previously terminated for being unvaccinated who have chosen to remain unvaccinated. As a result of the vaccine mandate, Interior Health terminated a very small percentage of our workforce of approximately 4%.”
Petitioners have until Oct. 11 to try to collect signatures for the recall attempt.