BC Green Party candidate for Kamloops Centre Randy Sunderman.

Image Credit: FACEBOOK: Randy Sunderman

In the last provincial election, they got seven times the number of votes as the BC Conservatives, but in the week since BC United threw in the towel, the BC Greens have barely gotten a mention.

With BC United now out of the running, the Green Party of BC is now the only alternative to the NDP or the Conservatives.

BC Green candidate for Kamloops-Centre, Randy Sunderman, said he takes public engagement and the electoral system very seriously, so he put his name in the hat.

"One of the reasons I put my name out there for the BC Greens is... I believe the people of Kamloops deserve an opportunity to have a choice of policies and platforms and candidates," Sunderman said.

He said it is hard to say where BC United's departure will leave the Greens and wants to focus on policy platforms.

"I don't see it so much as right, left and centre. I see it more as what do we need today for the future," Sunderman said. "You're building a platform based on what you feel is needed for the province and your constituents."

However, with BC United out of the picture, it gives the Greens a possibility of winning seats.

"They occupied that right-centre part of the spectrum, and their departure certainly leaves an opportunity for myself to move into that territory," Sunderman said. "But... fundamentally, I believe the more voices we have in the dialogue and the discussions and the debate, I think the better off everyone is."

Like most, he was surprised by the way BC United pulled out.

"Especially after... the tone of the tenure between the Conservatives and the BC United was so visceral. They seemed to be really at each other's throats there, and then all of a sudden they're on the same team," he said.

He does think there's an opportunity for the Greens to seize BC United votes.

"There's already been conversations. I've already had people from BC United support me by taking lawn signs," Sunderman said. "I'm very encouraged by that. I will see how many come over to our camp, but it looks very positive in these first few days."

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There's also an opportunity to take votes from the NDP, considering it's polling about 10 points below where it was before the last election.

"Whenever you have that kind of shift away from a party, it gives opportunities to others to capture that," he said.

The BC Greens only has two seats in the legislature, and narrowly missed a third by about 50 votes, but while it's easy to dismiss any third party, they did hold the balance of power after the 2017 election.

"We were the kingmakers," Sunderman said.

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After 50 years of following politics, he said the "wild swings" of different BC governments hold the province back.

"I've been inside government. I've consulted for government. I've worked in communities that deal with government policy and... we're getting poor outcomes because one party is one way, one party the other way," he said. "We get into these Bandaid solutions sometimes and we get into these wild swings in policy."

You're going to have three competitive parties here and the first one to 37 per cent is probably going to win the day," he said.

The BC general election is scheduled for Oct. 19.

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