Brent Chapman has withdrawn from the Surrey South provincial race, leaving the riding’s voters with a five-way field less than three weeks before the October 24 vote.
Chapman, the sitting Surrey South MLA, announced last month that he was joining OneBC to contest the snap election after Kerry-Lynne Findlay resigned as Conservative leader on September 20. His name is absent from the Elections BC final candidate list published after the October 3 filing deadline, confirming he is not on the ballot. With the legislature dissolved for the snap vote, media outlets now refer to him as the former Surrey South MLA.
OneBC issued a statement over the weekend addressing the withdrawal. The party alleged that Chapman and Findlay were “subjected to a torrent of threats and abuse” from what it called “insiders” and the “self-appointed leaders of the CPBC.” The statement was issued by OneBC on social media over the weekend, but no outlet has independently substantiated the allegation, and no alleged perpetrator was named in the statement. Chapman himself declined to elaborate, telling Peace Arch News: “just had enough – that’s all I’ll say about that.”
For South Surrey voters, the shakeup scrambles a race that briefly looked like it would feature a sitting MLA switching parties. The confirmed field now stands at five candidates. Megan Knight, the outgoing mayor of White Rock, carries the Conservative Party of BC banner. Elenore Sturko, the CentreBC leader and former Surrey Cloverdale MLA, is running for her new party. Parik Tahlan represents the BC NDP, Bill McConnell the BC Green Party, and Denis R. Hurtubise appears as a OneBC candidate on the party’s website, though Elections BC lists him as unaffiliated and his affiliation could not be confirmed at press time.
The withdrawal also ends, at least for now, the OneBC experiment in Surrey South. Chapman joined the new party only weeks ago alongside Findlay’s resignation, and OneBC now heads into the vote without its most prominent local standard-bearer in the riding.
Voters in Surrey South head to the polls on October 24 alongside the rest of the province in a snap election that has already produced several high-profile defections and withdrawals.
Sources: Peace Arch News (Oct 6); OneBC social media statement; Elections BC final candidate list.
