After spending a couple of days in the Okanagan, BC Green Party leader Andrew Weaver joined his party's candidate in the upcoming Kelowna-West byelection, Robert Stupka, at a townhall meeting in downtown Westbank Thursday night.

While Green Party candidate Robert Mellalieu garnered just 13 per cent of the vote in the Kelowna-West riding in the 2017 election, both Weaver and Stupka are confident in their chances in the upcoming byelection, which is expected to occur in early February.

“The premier ran in Kelowna-West last election and it's a hard slog for any candidate to run against the premier of this province,” said Andrew Weaver.

“Robert (Stupka) represents everything that's new, everything that's innovative, everything that Kelowna is going to become.”

Stupka, a professional engineer and business owner, said because of the Green Party's co-operative agreement with the BC NDP, he will be able to have influence in the legislature for the region.

Audience questions at the townhall meeting revolved around proportional representation, the expansion of the Kinder Morgan pipeline and the recent NDP decision to proceed with the construction of the Site C dam.

“The single most compelling argument, which I cannot understand to this day why the BC NDP made the decision they did, was the economic argument,” Weaver said on the subject of the Site C dam. “You're going to amortize this $15-billion dam, which is what it's going to be, over 70 years and the rate payer is going to pay for it.”

Weaver said he'd be “very surprised” if the byelection was not called within the first three days of next week.

Former Premier Christy Clark won the Kelowna-West riding for the BC Liberals in 2017, but gave up her seat after the BC NDP took power in June, with the support of the three Green Party MLAs.

Stupka will run against BC Liberal Ben Stewart, NDP Shelley Cook and Libertarian Kyle Geronazzo.