With Canadians heading back to the polls on September 20 for another federal election, here’s a little who, what and why about the three main candidates vying to represent North Island-Powell River in Ottawa.
Jessica Wegg – The legal warrior
Rookie politician Jessica Wegg will be aiming for a long-shot Green Party upset on the North Island. Born in Calgary, Wegg is a practising lawyer with a focus on human and civil rights. At the age of 12, her family moved to the United States.
After high school, she went on to earn a MA in clinical psychology followed by a law degree. The rise of Trumpism and a divorce got the newly single mother of two kids dreaming about a return to Canada. In 2019, four years after marrying her law partner and best friend Jon, she realized the dream of going back north. The couple settled in the Comox Valley.
The self-styled climate and human rights activist has made food security her top priority issue going into this election.
Family is important to Wegg; her Twitter feed is largely dedicated to kid references. On her website, she credits her father, a rural family physician in underserved communities, for teaching her “to treat all people with dignity and respect.”
Rachel Blaney – The community builder
Incumbent Rachel Blaney, first elected to parliament in 2015, will try to win a third term as MP. She is currently the NDP’s Whip, critic for Veterans Affairs and deputy critic for Crown-Indigenous Relations & Indigenous Services.
Blaney lists affordable housing, climate action and Universal Pharmacare as priority issues.
Rachel Blaney was raised Terrace as an adoptive daughter of a Stellat’en First Nation family. She moved to Nanaimo to attend Malaspina University-College, where she received a bachelor of arts degree in First Nation studies. In 1998 she relocated to Campbell River, where she married Darren Blaney, current chief of the Homalco First Nation, and raised three children.
She worked with the Homalco, then became executive director of the Immigrant Welcome Centre of North Vancouver Island.
On Twitter, Blaney has been vocal about soaring housing costs in Canada, the unravelling political situation in Afghanistan, and recent anti-semitism faced by Liberal MPs Anthony Housefather and Rachel Bendayan.
Shelley Downey – The drugstore owner and town councillor
Conservative candidate Shelley Downey came close in the last federal election, edged out of a seat by Blaney by a mere 350 votes. Born in Forts St. John, Downey spent her childhood in northern BC, but has lived in Port McNeill since 1991.
She has done accounting work in the fishing, tourism and helicopter sectors, but since 2008 has focused on the family drug store business. Downey is active in her local church community and previously volunteered as a volleyball coach.
Downey is also active in municipal politics. A former school board trustee, she is currently serving her fourth term as a Port McNeill town councillor. Neither her website nor Twitter feed reveals much about her policy positions, beyond Retweets defending forestry and fish farming against what she calls the “activist agenda.”
