As barbecue season begins, so does the speculation about BC Liberal candidates for the May 2017 election.
We know Bill Bennett, Moira Stilwell and Don McRae are out. But who is in?
On that note, this post is brought to you by the letter J.
Ex-Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu didn’t throw his hat in the ring for the federal election in 2015. There is a strong push inside the party to draft the Aquilini Investment Group vice-president. (Yes, those Aquilinis, one of the party’s biggest backers.)
Chu retired after 36 years on the force in May 2015 and joined the Aquilinis last summer. Before he left the force, he registered the JimChu.ca domain. He claims he doesn’t plan on using it for political purposes.
“In the past year, I have had approaches by more than one political party to run for office,” Chu tells me. “It is an honour to be considered. But I have said that I am happy at Aquilini and I have no plans to leave.”
Chu was in the news last week, vowing to fight back at an Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner misconduct hearing over a dispute about a constable that he wanted to fire.
Adman Jatinder Rai, owner of Response Advertising, was pondering a move out of the backroom and onto the hustings. He is a former interim chair of ICBC who was appointed to the Medal of Good Citizenship Committee last October. Sources tell me the federal Liberal and longtime Christy Clark loyalist will remain on the inside.
You might have seen a certain campaign on which he has worked. The B.C. government won’t say how much it has spent or budgeted on the multimillion-dollar Our Opportunity Is Here propaganda. Opposition politicians, like Delta independent Vicki Huntington, have slammed it for being wasteful, partisan advertising, paid for by the public.
And, the third J?
Jas Johal.
One of B.C.’s best journalists quit the craft in September 2014, going from Global BC to the B.C. LNG Alliance. The world LNG slump means that industry is stuck in neutral, but the Liberals are eyeing him as a star candidate.
He has not responded to my emails or phone calls to his office.
If he does, I’ll let you know.
Those working inside the party I could see running for office. Chu and Johal, crawling into bed with the most corrupt political party B.C. has yet produced? what a shame. they could do more with their lives than that. To join a political party which has no business sense and continues to loose money, one which ignores children, education, and health; they would want to join that?
What change would Chu and Johal believe they could affect in this province to make things better for citizens? The party isn’t being run by anyone who seems to care about people or the environment. Oh, well if Chu and Johal run for the B.C. Lieberals they will have demonstrated just how low people can stoop to make a buck.