There are currently three candidates running for the South Peace seat in the BC Provincial election, two of which are from Tumbler Ridge.
Incumbent Larry Neufeld is, of course, running again, having only served for two years of his four year turn.
He’s up against Tumbler Ridge resident Marsha Rose Dufresne, who is running for the first time for the provincial NDP.
Dufresne is a longtime Indigenous Education Support Worker at the local school. She has served as a Director with Tumbler Ridge Community Forest and the Tumbler Ridge UNESCO Global Geopark. Dufresne is well-known in town, and has served on many volunteer boards.
The third candidate is former Tumbler Ridge councillor Helen Scott, who is running as an unaffiliated candidate, but is “Endorsed and approved by OneBC leader Dallas Brodie.”
Scott says last election she campaigned for a party, “because we had to get rid of someone and their party. We asked for donations and put a candidate in every riding even if their values weren’t quite aligned. I talked people whom had never voted in their life into voting. I heard from them that ‘we don’t matter in the North’ and ‘it’s two wings of the same bird’ and then ‘vote spliting’.”
Scott says no party owns anyone’s vote. “No union should tell members how to vote. I respect all voters and everyone should look at whom their candidate is, what they stand for and decide for themselves, who best represents them and their area. I’m offering independent thinking with conservative values and local accountability to Peace River South first. If people believe I represent them better, that isn’t splitting a vote. That’s democracy. That’s freedom.”
Notably absent from the lineup is Mike Bernier. “This is the first election in over 20 years my name is not on the ballot,” he says.
Instead of running this year, he is working as a campaign strategist.
Bernier was the MLA for Peace River South for more than a decade as a member of the BC Liberal party—the then centre-right party in BC which changed its name to BC United to differentiate itself from the centre-left(ish) Federal liberals—which self destructed in 2022 and 2023.
Bernier ran as an independent in 2024 after BC United suspended the party’s campaigning in that election. The same year, the BC Conservatives—a centre-farther right party that hadn’t won a seat since 1975—inherited a number of high-profile BC United Candidates (including John Rustad—who had been kicked out of the United Party for his denialist stance on climate change and became leader of the BC Conservatives—Peter Milobar, Trevor Halford, Iain Black and more) and came in a close second in that year’s election, winning 44 seats, to the NDP’s 47.
Prior to BC United party leader Kevin Falcon suspending the BC United’s campaign, they had 56 candidates running (there are 93 seats in BC), including 11 incumbents. Falcon said at the time this was done to prevent vote splitting in competitive ridings.
However, Bernier pointed out that Falcon, as party leader, only had the power to withdraw the party from the forthcoming contest. He could not withdraw the individual candidates. Some former BC United members joined the Conservatives, some ran as independent or unaffiliated, and some withdrew from the election.
At the time, Bernier and Karin Kirkpatrick discussed forming a new party in time for the new election, but that happened in March 28 of last year, when CentreBC—a less right and more centre political party—was formed with Kirkpatrick as head.
Kirkpatrick stepped down as leader of the new party in June and Bernier took over as head in July, a position he held for two months until offering it up to Peter Milobar—one of nine Conservative party members who left the Conservatives due to internal conflicts within the party and especially disagreements with then-party head Kerry-Lynne Findlay (who replaced Rustad after he was run out of the party in December, 2025)—who joined CentreBC on Sept 18 of this year.
The election was called four days later and Milobar and six of the seven other former Conservatives who had joined CentreBC returned to that party.
The seventh, Elenore Sturko, remained with CentreBC and took over as party leader as of September 22, a position she still holds three weeks on.
With the Conservatives and other right of centre parties in a state of disarray, NDP leader David Eby called a snap election, hoping to capitalize on the confusion. While the stated goal of the election call was to put the province in a place to deal with “existential threats” presented by US President Donald Trump, most people see it at a thin veneer of legitimacy to mask an attempt to grow the party’s base in light of these divisions.
But nearly all the members of the Conservatives who left came back, and they appointed Lorne Doerkson as leader of the opposition.
People across the province—including in Tumbler Ridge—will be going to the polls on Saturday October 24. Voting booths will be set up at the Community Centre. Advance polls will also be at the Community Centre, on October 19, 20 and 21.
The three candidates, in alphabetical order, Marsha Rose Dufresne, Larry Neufeld and Helen Scott.
