Highly anticipated recall campaign for Okanagan MLA ready to launch

Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream MLA Tara Armstrong has been creating controversy after controversy, and now it’s just a month away from her constituents’ mad dash to collect enough signatures to recall her out of office.

The recall campaign’s spokesperson Wilbur Turner said that the plan is to file a recall petition as soon as possible, which is April 20. Once the petition is approved the campaign will have 60 days to collect at least 18,000 signatures from registered voters in Armstrong’s electoral area.

“She’s not delivered on anything she promised that she would at the beginning of when she was running for office on things like affordability and health care and housing. All of her efforts have been culture war stuff,” Turner told iNFOnews.ca. “It’s folks from all political stripes, people who voted for Tara Armstrong and people who didn’t.”

Armstrong recently landed in hot water when she tried to repeal the BC Human Rights Code, and used the Tumbler Ridge shooting to attack “transgender ideology.”

She has also shifted parties several times. Armstrong was elected as a BC Conservative, left the party and helped start OneBC, then she was forced out of that party and now sits as an independent.

“Every time there’s something in the news that she’s done that seems to be egregious, we get an influx of donations and people signing up to help out. So it seems like people are very engaged across the riding,” Turner said.

Armstrong did not respond to a request for comment.

Signatures for the recall petition have to be signed in person, anyone signing has to be a registered voter in the Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream district as of the provincial election in Oct. 19, 2024.

Turner said the recall campaign is going to send volunteers to collect signatures door-to-door, but also set up central signing locations around the riding.

“We’re hoping to have central locations in each key area like Coldstream, Lake Country and Kelowna where people can come to sign and we need to get the word out,” he said.

Donors to the recall campaign need to be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident and live in B.C.

There has never been a successful recall petition in B.C. and during the only campaign that got close to succeeding, the MLA resigned as Elections BC was verifying the petition.

After 17 Pride organizations recently called for her to step down, Armstrong said she isn’t going anywhere.

Turner said he doesn’t expect her to resign halfway through the petition process.

“I am expecting it’ll go all the way. She tends to double down on things like this. She’s made several statements that she’s not going anywhere. So I think it’s important that we keep the pressure on but also that we, you know, plan strategically to win this recall petition,” he said.