In what was described as the most well-attended nomination meeting yet, the Green Party of Canada’s Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo riding association acclaimed candidate Iain Currie Wednesday night.

About 70 people packed The Vic downtown to hear Currie’s acceptance speech and the candidate described the turnout as momentum in the run-up to the election.

article continues below

“The Greens are a force, I think, locally, and we’re going to build on this and we’re going to leverage the excitement, the interest, the passion of the people in this room,”

he told KTW.

The local riding association is reporting what appears to be a record high in donations.

“The final tally of donations and pledges isn’t available yet, but all signs point to online and in-person donations to the local candidate spiking tonight to a level we have not seen here before,” said local Green riding association president Matt Greenwood. “It looks like we received more money tonight than we did during the entire election campaign in 2015.”

Currie said support for the Greens is at an all-time high across the country, noting Wednesday’s turnout is evident momentum has spread to Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo.

Green candidates have seen success in 2019 with the election of Canada’s second Green MP, Paul Manley, in the Nanaimo-Ladysmith byelection and with the party forming official opposition in Prince Edward Island. In 2017, three Green Party MLAs were elected in B.C and currently hold the balance of power in the province.

Currie is a longtime Kamloops resident and served as a Crown prosecutor for nearly 20 years.

He is currently a practising civil lawyer with the Cundari Seibel LLC law office, from which he has taken a leave of absence to focus full-time on the campaign.

Currie will be on the ballot alongside Ken Finlayson (People’s Party), Peter Kerek (Communist), Terry Lake (Liberal), Cathy McLeod (Conservative) and Gina Myhill-Jones (NDP).

The federal election will be held on Oct. 21.