From left: Conservative candidate Scott Anderson, Liberal candidate Anna Warwick Sears, NDP candidate Leah Main, and Green candidate Blair Visscher.

Image Credit: .

Another brand new riding for 2025, the newly formed Vernon–Lake Country–Monashee has, as the name suggests, absorbed Lake Country into the fold, as well as parts of the West Kootenays while cutting the northern tip of the North Okanagan and the Shuswap out.

The riding includes Vernon with the northern border cutting through Spallumcheen south of Armstrong and heading east, north of Sugar Lake and into the Kootenays. Nakusp is now part of the new riding as well as the small towns south along the Slocan Valley, down to Krestova, which is about 30 kilometres north of Castlegar. The ridings border then runs northwest to Lake Country and west across Okanagan Lake.
 

Demographics

According to Elections Canada Vernon–Lake Country–Monashee has a population of 108,606 at last count with an average age of 47 years old. That’s higher than the provincial and national averages which are 42.3 years old and 41.7 years old, respectively. Voter turnout at the 2021 federal election was the lowest in a decade and 64% of eligible residents turned out to cast a ballot – 1% higher than the national average. Elections Canada says the average wage is $50,760 and 95% of residents speak English at home.

Who does it vote for?

The North Okanagan has always been a slam dunk for the Conservative party and traditionally the region has voted for Conservative parties going back more than 40 years. The last time the NDP won what was then the Okanagan–Shuswap riding was 1988. The NDP only kept the seat for one term, losing it to the Reform Party in the 1993 general election.

While the North Okanagan has been a Tory stronghold the ridings boundary change has now taken in an area, albeit sparsely populated, who have voted NDP at the last three elections. 

Whether the area of the Slocan Valley up to Nakusp has a large enough population to put much of a dent into the Conservative's votes will be found out after election day.

It’s also worth remembering that although the new riding, absorbed possible left-leaning voters from the West Kootenays, it also annexed Lake Country, which has a much larger population who normally vote blue.

With the exception of 2015 when Liberal Party candidate Stephen Fuhr took the Lake Country–Kelowna seat, voters in Lake Country have predominately voted for a conservative party for decades.

However, politically the area does appear to be changing and BC NDP MLA Harwinder Sandhu has won the last two provincial elections taking the seat from what had traditionally gone to right-of-centre parties.

We’ll have to wait to see whether a new riding and the newfound tendency to lean left have any impact come election day.

The riding is new and North Okanagan–Shuswap MP Mel Arnold is running in the new Kamloops–Shuswap–Central Rockies riding. So with no incumbent MP running it could make a difference.

The Vernon–Lake Country–Monashee riding

Image Credit: Elections Canada

Conservative Party candidate Scott Anderson

Anderson is a former Vernon city councillor who sat for two terms on council before throwing his hat in the ring for mayor in 2022 and losing. He was the interim party leader for the BC Conservative Party from 2017 to 2019 and was previously in the Canadian military. He owns junk removal company, Dump Runz.

Scott Anderson HOMEPAGE

NDP candidate Leah Main

Main has spent more than 15 years as a councillor in the small Kootenay community of Silverton and has been a director for the Regional District of Central Kootenay since 2011. She was a director at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities for almost a decade and has a lengthy history of being involved with multiple community organizations for the last 20 or more years.

Leah Main HOMEPAGE

Liberal Party candidate Anna Warwick Sears

Best known locally as the former executive director of the Okanagan Basin Water Board, a position she held for almost 20 years before retiring last year. Warwick Sears has a PhD in population biology and has worked extensively in water science. In 2024, she ran as BC NDP candidate in the Kelowna–Lake Country–Coldstream riding coming in second place with 35% of the vote.

Anna Warwick Sears HOMEPAGE

Green Party candidate Blair Visscher

Former high school teacher Blair Visscher is a political newbie in the race. She’s currently doing a master’s degree in sustainability at UBCO and works with the Living with Wildfires in the Okanagan research group. Visscher is the current chief executive officer of the North-Okanagan Shuswap Green Party electoral district association. According to her bio, she’s expanded its board by more than 75% in the last year.

Blair Visscher HOMEPAGE

Canada's federal election takes place Monday, April 28. Information on voting from Election Canada is available here.

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