CONTENT ADVISORY: Contains unedited comments from a politician

Smaller stories don’t always make the headlines during an election campaign when candidates try to sell themselves to voters.

While bigger policy questions get the most attention, some events on the way toward double elections in the Thompson-Okanagan region may have passed you by.

The election campaign in Kamloops is getting heated, largely on social media, but it was discourse on Penticton-based social media spaces that triggered a report to RCMP.

City officials and police have been quiet about what particular comments prompted a police report for harassment or threats, but users appear to be targeting one city staffer amid frustrations over bike lanes and road construction, repeatedly calling for her to be fired.

Also in the South Okanagan, MLA Amelia Boultbee may have stepped back from politics and isn’t running in the current election campaign, but she hasn’t slowed down her social media campaigns.

Before and after joining the BC NDP, she gained a reputation for combative comments toward the public. That hasn’t stopped.

DOUBLE ELECTION 2026: Overheard on the campaign trail | iNFOnews.ca — An Oct. 9, 2026, screenshot of Boultbee’s social media recent interactions. FACEBOOK/Cheryl Weins

She called some constituents “ungrateful miscreants” and said she gets paid whether she talks to them either way in a back-and-forth commenting battle last week, but Penticton-Summerland voters need not worry. The BC NDP is instead running its candidate from 2024 again, Tina Lee.

Social media nastiness isn’t reserved for Penticton, though, when Central Okanagan school trustee candidate Wilbur Turner decried false claims that he threatened an MLA’s wife.

In Kamloops, incumbent mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson is being investigated by the province’s privacy commissioner for sharing private health information about a former city employee, risking more legal action if he doesn’t comply with a series of orders.

For Kamloops in particular, the strange municipal election campaign has been wrought with toxic social media comments against candidates, and those vying for a seat have found it more divisive than previous elections.

The end is approaching, however, with municipal election day Saturday, Oct. 17.

The provincial election will follow a week later, Saturday, Oct. 24.