Tom Dyas was the only Kelowna mayoral candidate invited to speak at a political meeting of 150 Indo-Canadians.

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OPINION

When he was first elected as mayor in 2014, Colin Basran made headlines across the country.

At age 37, he was Kelowna’s first Indo-Canadian mayor, a sign of the city's maturity, diversity and youthful vigour.

I wouldn’t bet against him returning for his third term after votes are cast Oct. 15 but I’m starting to see a little crack in the Teflon armour.

Advanced voting is already double what it was in 2018. That means voters are motivated. I don’t see any compelling rock star candidates, so the source of that motivation should scare any incumbent politician in Kelowna.

A recent Castanet poll showed Dyas with a sizeable lead. That's not exactly reliable, but I don't recall seeing any informal polls showing against Basran four years ago.

Marshall Jones, managing editor

I’m also hearing rumblings that Basran has had trouble finding volunteers for his campaign. I’m not sure how much stock to put in that however because Basran has raised a lot of money — surely he can just pay volunteers.

Basran has proudly touted in the past that he was endorsed by the Kelowna firefighters, who often vote as a bloc. They haven’t announced who they’re supporting yet, but I’m hearing it’s likely going to be Dyas.  (After this column was first published, the Kelowna firefighters released their list and supported Basran. Error remains for transparency.)

Add all that up and I’m not sure it puts Basran at any risk — he doubled his nearest challenger in 2018 and took 56 per cent of the vote.

But a meeting last night at the Bunkhouse Bar in southeast Kelowna has gotta hurt — 150 Indo-Canadian voters were invited to hear from a few candidates, including Indy Dhial for council.

And Basran wasn’t even invited.

But Tom Dyas was. And I heard he made quite a good impression.

“Our community is not supporting Colin,” an organizer told me.

He said his community shares many of the concerns throughout the city, largely crime. But again the issues aren’t even necessarily the issues — it’s Basran himself.

One thing I’ve seen often in this election campaign is ‘Colin in the DMs’. Believe me, that can be taken in several ways and I’m sure all of them are true. But in this case, it’s Basran trying to take any criticism offline, inviting people to direct message him… and then they never hear from him again.

The same organizer said the general sentiment is that Basran was first elected on his grandfather's name but now he has to earn it himself.

"Colin becomes Sikh every four years,” the organizer said. “Use it to your advantage, then walk away.”

There's an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 votes there. It doesn’t sound like much, and surely not everyone will vote the same way — but it could be enough to swing this election. Basran’s big lead four years ago sounds great in percentages — but it was only 9,000 votes between him and Dyas.

I won’t believe it until I see it, but we could just have an upset in the making here in Kelowna.

— Marshall Jones is the Managing Editor of iNFOnews.ca

— The author made an amendment to this story, as noted within the story, at 10:30 a.m. Oct. 11.

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