An opaque, socially conservative slate that ran school board candidates in Kelowna and Vernon during the last municipal elections appears to be out of the picture this time round.

In 2022, ParentsVoice BC, under the slogan “More education, less indoctrination,” ran three candidates in Vernon and four in Kelowna, for a total of 28 candidates across eight school districts in BC.

However, for this year’s local elections, ParentsVoice BC aren’t officially running any candidates across the Southern Interior and appear to have just one incumbent candidate on the ballot in the province. Incumbent Carroll Walker is running again for the Nechako Lakes school district in Vanderhoof.

The organization did register itself to run candidates in all school districts across the province, and it’s not clear why it didn’t.

Its website is half built, but it does contain the statement: “Our goal for 2026 is to build on the success of our initial campaign, and run a full slate of candidates in all 60 school districts.”

When that statement was made isn’t known. A call by iNFOnews.ca to its founder Marc Vella wasn’t returned.

In 2022, the organization was heavily criticized by District Parent Advisory Councils to unions.

The organization claimed it stood for transparency, but in Vernon the candidates failed to show up to an all-candidates debate. In Kelowna, the candidates showed their ignorance of SOGI 123, incorrectly stating the policy was “taught” in schools. Months after the election, former Vernon candidate Jewlie Milligan was issued a no-trespass order by the school district, which accused her of sending threatening and intimidating letters to staff.

Separately, another right-wing slate that appeared during the last election also isn’t running candidates for this election.

Spirit Alliance registered as an electoral organization for Kelowna council but doesn’t have any candidates.

In 2022, Spirit Alliance ran two candidates, former RCMP officer Chris Williams and Sacheen Collecutt. Outside of being a right-of-centre political organization, it was difficult to pin down what they stood for, but Williams denied it was a thinly disguised right-wing anti-vax organization, saying it was “offensive” to ask such a question. The two candidates came in 20th and 24th place.

Technically not political parties, slates can run as electoral organizations in BC, but outside of Vancouver and the Lower Mainland it’s rare.

Neither Kelowna nor Vernon have any political slates running for council or the school district, but Kamloops and Penticton do.

Penticton Together is running four candidates for council, while Pivot Kamloops has put forward mayoral candidate Nelly Dever, along with three others for council.

UBC professor of political science Max Cameron told iNFOnews.ca political slates aren’t common in BC municipal politics and voters generally like it that way.

“Voters tend to be turned off by partisanship… at the local level, partisanship can be particularly dysfunctional,” Cameron said.

Without political parties, elected politicians can vote how they want and don’t have to tow the party line.

“You do occasionally get municipalities where real conflicts emerge, and those conflicts can cause paralysis,” he said, adding political parties into the mix can make the situation worse.

Currently, the public seems in favour of a lack of political slates.

A 2023 poll by Research Co. found that 50% of British Columbians wanted slates banned at the municipal level.