FRIDAY OCTOBER 25, 2024
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VOLUME 1|NO. 01
CONS WIN KAMLOOPS Milobar and Stamer off to Victoria as provincial results remain up in the air Sean Brady: Reporter news@kamloopschronicle.ca
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A5 Teen fights for school Local student Alya Van Laer argued for a new Aberdeen school at the recent UBCM
Church rebuilds Kamloops United Church begins recovery from devasting August fire
A6 A history of Kamloops News Former mayor and publisher Mel Rothenburger walks through news history
A7
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AMLOOPS HAS SENT Peter Milobar back to the legislature for a third time, alongside party mate and now first-time MLA Ward Stamer. Preliminary election results indicate a minority government, with the NDP likely to end up one seat short of a majority with 46 elected, the newly formed BC Conservative party picking up 45 seats and the Green Party of B.C. with two seats. Milobar’s primary opponent in the race for Kamloops Centre was Kamal Grewal of the BC NDP, who trailed by about 2,000 votes in preliminary results. Stamer’s victory was more decisive, nearly doubling the vote count of BC NDP candidate Maddi Genn in Kamloops-North Thompson. As of election night, it was unclear to both winning candidates whether or not they would be heading to Victoria as part of government or opposition. “God willing, we’re going to form government,” Stamer said in his brief Saturday night victory speech at Match Eatery. While Stamer joined the BC Conservatives early on, Milobar was running for the BC United party until its collapse in late August. “It was not an easy time during the collapse and the withdrawal of BC United and my subsequent running with the BC Conservatives,” Milobar told media after addressing a packed
Sean Brady photo
Peter Milobar and Ward Stamer have been elected as MLAs for Kamloops Centre and Kamloops-North Thompson. room at the casino. Milobar referred to the changeover as tumultuous, but was relieved to see Kamloops voters still had faith in him as an MLA, even under a new banner. “I know they were a little unsure, but they put their trust in me and I take that very seriously. It’s very humbling, in a way,” Milobar said. Part of his campaign was convincing people he hadn’t changed his stripes, leaning on campaigning fundamentals like door knocking, phone calls and being on the ground on election day. Milobar said he wanted to reassure people that he’s still the same person he was six weeks ago and that he’ll
continue to be that person. While it may have been a rough way to start his campaign, Milobar has embraced Stamer as the next member of “Team Kamloops,” referring to the city’s history of electing conservative/centre-right MLAs, pointing to previous duos like Claude Richmond and Bud Smith, Terry Lake and Kevin Krueger and himself and Todd Stone, who opted not to run in this election following the collapse of BC United. Stamer said he’s thankful to have Milobar’s experience in the legislature to lean on in the early days. “It’s absolutely huge. I don’t like the details, a lot of the time, I like to cut to the chase and get right to it,”
Stamer said. The soon-to-be-former mayor of Barriere said it’s going to be “tough” to leave his post there, getting emotional when asked about his transition to the new role. “Like my dad said – he didn’t really want me to do this – he said, ‘Can’t you continue to advocate as the mayor?’ and I said, ‘Unfortunately I can’t, Dad,’ because what I want to change is at a provincial level,” he said. Stamer list of key issues includes health care and lack of access to it, housing and affordability. “We’ve got to do more than just ‘We’re working on it,’” he said. Continued on A5