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Ross Rebagliati
Olympic gold medalist turned Liberal politician, Ross Rebagliati, says one of the keys to beating incumbent Stockwell Day in the riding of Okanagan-Coquihalla will be getting people who traditionally don’t vote out to the polls.
Day, the Minister for International Trade and the former leader of the Canadian Alliance, handily won his seat in the 2008 election, taking 58.16 per cent of all ballots cast.
“But really, he was only able to capture a fraction of the potential vote. The voter turnout was pathetic and not only in that riding but pretty much across the whole country,” Rebagliati said in an interview.
Voter turnout in the riding was 59.6 per cent, 60.1 per cent throughout B.C. and 58.8 per cent for the country as a whole.
“Part of my goal and my quest is to get in touch with those younger voters, and what I mean by younger is 40 and younger and get them voting and get them interested in the political process and I feel with my notoriety and with the sports that I do, snowboarding, dirt biking, waterskiing and wake boarding and the whole nine yards, that I’m going to be able to resonate with that demographic,” said Rebagliati.
He also said that his getting into politics “makes more sense than people probably realize.” Since getting back from Nagano with his gold medal in 1998, Rebagliati has worked with a host of charitable organizations including Big Brothers, the Kids Help Phone Line and the Make-a-Wish Foundation.
He also became politically active with the Liberal party while living in Whistler. “I was approached at one point in time to run for mayor [of Whistler] and it wasn’t the right time in my life to get involved that way.”
But now is the right time. Rebagliati said no one else in his party was stepping forward for the Okanagan-Coquihala nomination and he couldn’t let the next election happen without a Liberal on the ballot.
“It’s not that I’m going to be running against Stockwell Day as much as me running for the riding, giving those constituents an option, giving them a choice,” he said. “It seemed like this is an opportunity to step up to the plate and show my commitment to the region.”
Rebagliati will likely be acclaimed as the Liberal nominee during a nomination meeting Monday evening in Penticton. While he currently lives in Kelowna with his wife Alexandria, and five-month-old son Ryan, Rebagliati said he has a lifelong connection to Okanagan-Coquihalla.
His family has owned a cottage on Okanagan Lake in Naramata since the 1950s.
“We’ve basically grown up spending our summers out there. It’s a place in the world I hold it close to my heart and have super fun memories,” he said.
Rebagliati is most famous for winning the first ever Olympic gold medal in snowboarding and then having it taken away when he tested positive for Marijuana. He claimed the positive test was the result of exposure to second hand pot smoke and his medal was returned after he won an appeal.
The intense scrutiny amounted to a crash course in politics.
“As I crossed the finish line I went from athlete to politician with no media training whatsoever, nobody around me to tell me what to say,” he said. “And an experience like that really lets you know who you are as a person.
The president of the Liberal riding association in Okanagan-Coquihalla, Darvinder Garcha, said Rebagliati gives the Liberals the best shot they’ve ever had at winning the riding.
“In the past we have had not very good candidates in this riding because it is dominated by the right,” he said. “So after a long time the Okanagan-Coquihalla has a very good candidate.”
Valerie Halford was the Liberal candidate in the last election, coming in last place with 12.08 per cent of the vote. The NDP’s Ralph Poynting was second with 16.45 per cent and the Green Party’s Dan Bouchard was third with 13.31 per cent.
adrian@kelowna.com
250-575-3517
Related story: Snowboarder Rebagliati trying to slide into federal politics with nomination bid
Tags: Kelowna, liberals, okanagan-coquihalla, ross rebagliati
