Peter Kerek (left) is the Communist Party of B.C. candidate for Kamloops-North Thompson. Beat Klossner (right) is the candidate for Kamloops-South Thompson.
Image Credit: Contributed
August 31, 2016 - 6:30 PM
KAMLOOPS - Both provincial ridings in Kamloops will have candidates representing the Communist Part of B.C. for next year's election.
Peter Kerek, 43, will be running for the Kamloops-North Thompson riding, and Beat Klossner, 55, will run for Kamloops-South Thompson.
“We’re really looking forward to broadening the narrow political landscape that has existed in Kamloops for decades now,” Kerek says in a media release. “Trickle-down economics has run its ugly course – it didn’t work on paper, and it doesn’t work in the real world. People are tired of the hoarding, greed and poverty incessant within capitalism, and our party’s the only one running in Kamloops that proposes systematic changes to a bankrupt system.”
Kerek is a stay-at-home dad. According to the release, he was active on the Kamloops and District Labour Council for 15 years. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree from UBC and a Bachelor of Journalism degree from TRU.
Kerek says he'd like to see more income equality in the province.
"Unfortunately, even the now centrist NDP has become so focused on holding onto their second place status that they very much abandoned all advocacy of practices that could eliminate poverty, hunger, homelessness and unemployment,” Kerek says.
Klossner works as a baker in downtown Kamloops.
“The other parties just offer different shades of the same capitalist system,” Klossner says.
According to the release, Klossner will be advocating for immediate affordable housing, public transit improvements, electoral reform and reversing tax breaks for the wealthy.
The release says the candidates know their party will not be running enough candidates to form government, but, do hope that their message will help "build momentum" for future elections.
“A small party like ours could potentially hold the balance of power and use that position to help extra-parliamentary movements to block neoliberal austerity policies,” Kerek says.
Both candidates are opposed to the proposed Ajax Mine Project, and claim they are the only candidates in Kamloops that have publicly denounced it.
The candidates will be making their first official campaign appearance at the Kamloops and District Labour Council’s annual Labour Day Picnic at McDonald Park on Monday, Sept. 5.
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