Shelley Downey running for Conservatives again

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Long term Port McNeill city Counsellor, and 2011 mayoral candidate, Shelley Downey will once again be the Conservative candidate in North Island-Powell River during the next federal election.

During the last election, the polls showed her briefly in the lead, but Downey lost to incumbent Rachel Blaney by 3,000 votes on election day.

“Right at the get-go we were hearing about affordability, and then in the latter part (of the campaign) it kind of shifted to having jobs, so I’m quite surprised at the results,” she told the North Island Gazette. “We have a lot of people here whose jobs are dependant on the resource sector, and if we’re going to shut down our resources – such as aquaculture – and mess around with our fisheries like they did this past summer with the chinook fisheries, not support the oil and gas sector, what’s going to be left?”
Downey declined Cortes Currents requests for an interview and also an invitation to the Cortes Island All Candidates Meeting.

One of her staff explained, “We just can’t take a whole day to go to Cortes.“

A quick glance at the returns for Cortes and the other Discovery Islands may reveal another reason.

There were not any Conservative voters at the Blind Channel-Stuart Island poll. They received a single vote on Read Island and 19 on Cortes. The Conservatives did better on Quadra Island: 186 votes, which was 625 behind the leading NDP.

Most of the votes throughout the Discovery Islands went to the either the NDP or Green parties.

Downey replied to Cortes Currents question about running again, yesterday, “Thank you for your email. I will be representing the Conservative Party of Canada when the next election is called. Take care.”

Photo credit: Cropped image from the City of Port McNeill Website