The worst kept secret in Prince George is now official.
In front of dozens of supporters at the Sandman Hotel, Mayor Shari Green formally announced that she will be running for the Conservative nomination in the Cariboo-Prince George riding. Dick Harris is retiring after 21 years in the seat.
Legion Commander John Scott, Lee Stewart of the VLA Improvement Project, Nick Johal of the Sikh Tempal on 5th and CEO of the Northern Development Initiative Janine North all spoke to the crowd and gave strong endorsements.
Green cited her existing political experience as the biggest thing that sets her apart from her opponents and says she wants to focus on crime in Northern BC at the federal level;
“Northern BC has a bulk of 6 or 7 cities that rank in the top 20 in the nation (in crime) and that’s just far too much in one concentrated area. We’ve got to have a conversation with the province and federal government for Northern BC about how we are going to tackle this. We might need a new approach, an out of the box kind of thing.”
She will be running up against Todd Doherty, TJ Grewal, Nick Fedorkiw and Gerald Caron. Despite the stiff competition, Green says she is confident;
“For me it hasn’t been campaigning, it’s been gauging support. ‘Do I have the support to do this?’ I wouldn’t put people through this exercise if I wasn’t confident that I could be the successful candidate at the end of the day.”
The date of the final vote isn’t nailed down yet, but Green estimated she had about two more weeks to sign up as many Conservative party members as possible before the voter deadline arrives.