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CRANBROOK — For four decades, Kootenay East voters have gone with the provincial majority. When the province went NDP, so did they. When it switched to the B.C. Liberals, they did, too.

Since 2001, that’s meant sending ‘Kootenay Bill’ Bennett to the legislature, where he made quite an impression there trading on his outsider status as the guy from the rugged, resource heartland at the far edge of the province.

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It never mattered that Bennett has a law degree from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. He’s been a vociferous defender of coal-miners, loggers, railroaders and hunters. As energy minister, Bennett has enthusiastically promoted Site C, LNG and the grizzly hunt.

Outspoken to a fault, he described the NDP as “turds” in 2013. In 2010, Bennett said cabinet colleagues (other than himself) had “battered-wife syndrome” as a result of former premier Gordon Campbell’s abuse.

But Kootenay Bill isn’t running this time and the riding is no longer a sure thing for the Liberals or their candidate, Tom Shypitka, a Cranbrook city councillor.