Why a Kelowna NDP candidate remains active after defeat

When most political candidates lose an election, they take a step back, but an NDP candidate in Kelowna said he has no intention of slowing down.

Trevor McAleese ran for the NDP in Kelowna in the last federal election and lost to Liberal Stephen Fuhr who unseated longtime incumbent Conservative Tracy Gray. The NDP as a whole took a beating and won just seven seats across the country.

McAleese hasn’t been deterred. He’s still showing up to events, recently gave a presentation on electoral reform and is trying to maintain the party’s presence in a city that has historically been a Conservative stronghold.

“There are a lot of people that themselves just don’t even bother to vote or to be involved at all. And my focus in this has always been on trying to engage people that are otherwise feeling ignored or shut out,” he said.

He isn’t just a former candidate, he’s also the vice president of the Okanagan Lake West-South Kelowna NDP electoral district association.

Elections are typically when people are paying the most attention, but he said it isn’t necessarily the best time to try to connect with people.

“It’s certainly a very high energy and an exciting time, but it’s generally far too compressed, I think, to actually be able to reach as many people as is necessary to build some kind of a movement. It’s also just crucial to try to keep people engaged in current events and anything happening in politics between elections, because it’s just easy to tune out,” he said.

The NDP is in a period where it’s restructuring after losing a lot of seats and former leader Jagmeet Singh stepped down, so there aren’t a lot of resources to go around.

“The party is largely focused on just trying to sort of do a bit of a performance review concerning the last election,” he said. “We do want to start doing more in the way of community outreach, just to really have more of an in-person presence in the community.”

Running for office takes a lot of time and effort, so he doesn’t blame candidates who step away after taking a loss in an election.

“For those candidates that just sort of disappear from the scene following an election, I can certainly understand why. It’s a demanding thing for a person’s time and energy. But I would say for anyone who is serious enough about trying to affect change, they would see that it goes well beyond being a one-time candidate.”

McAleese said that being involved with politics has always been rewarding for him whether it’s advocating on climate change, wealth inequality or electoral reform. 

“Wanting to be part of the solution towards making substantial progress on any of these things is really what keeps me wanting to stay involved, just to try to be part of a solution,” McAleese said. “You’ll meet all kinds of incredibly positive and like-minded people. . . it feels good to be part of something.”