PEMBERTON Mayor Jordan Sturdy will represent the B.C. Liberals as a candidate for West Vancouver Sea-to-Sky in the May 14 provincial election.
Sturdy won the nomination in the riding on Saturday, beating out Robin Smith, a retired businessman from the North Shore.
Over 1,400 of the party faithful voted Friday and Saturday through use of a travelling ballot box that made stops in West Vancouver, Pemberton, Whistler and Squamish.
Outgoing MLA Joan McIntyre announced the results in Squamish Saturday night.
McIntyre, who has held the West Vancouver seat under the Liberal banner for two terms, announced in September she wouldnt be running for re-election.
Sturdy, who owns North Arm Farm in the Pemberton Valley, has been mayor of Pemberton since 2005. He is also a paramedic with the BC Ambulance Service and a ski patroller.
Sturdy announced in October he was seeking the Liberal nomination, saying in a press statement, My values and ethics are best represented by the coalition which makes up the B.C. Liberals.
In the nomination campaign, Sturdy stressed his record of fiscal management in keeping municipal taxes low and the importance of a strong economy to maintaining social programs.
Sturdy joins incumbent North Shore MLAs Ralph Sultan, Jane Thornthwaite and Naomi Yamamoto, who are all defending Liberal seats heading into the May election.
Sturdys West Vancouver-Sea to Sky riding is widely considered a safe Liberal seat. McIntyre won the last election with more than 10,101 votes nearly 55 per cent handily beating both the second-place NDP with 4214 votes and the Greens, with 4,082 votes.
That pattern of Liberal wins by a large margin has continued unchanged in the West Vancouver riding since 1991, when the Liberals took over the right-of-centre vote from the Social Credit party.
In the 1980s John Reynolds represented the riding for governing Social Credit.
So far, neither the NDP, Green Party nor Conservatives have declared candidates in West Vancouver Sea to Sky.
Longtime NDP campaigner Terry Platt has put her name forward to run against Sultan in West Vancouver-Capilano another Liberal stronghold.
Yamamoto will go up against NDP candidate and North Vancouver City Councillor Craig Keating plus Ryan Conroy of the Green Party in North Vancouver-Lonsdale.
Jim Hanson of the NDP is challenging Thornthwaite in North Vancouver-Seymour.
