With BC Green Party announcing its candidate as Douglas Gook, there are now three Elections BC-approved candidates contesting the Nechako Lakes riding in the upcoming elections.
Douglas Gook will compete against incumbent MLA and leader of the Conservative Party of BC, John Rustad, and BC NDP candidate Abraham Murphy.
Gook, has previously run unsuccessfully as a Green candidate in the North Cariboo riding (now Prince George-Cariboo North) four times, including a bid in the Nechako Lakes riding in 2017, where he garnered nine percent of the vote.
Described by the BC Greens as a third-generation settler, Gook has lived and worked in the Cariboo and Nechako Lakes region for nearly 64 years. A resident of Quesnel, he holds a background in ecological commerce from the EcoForestry Institute and actively promotes biodynamic farming, wildcrafting, and local food systems.
Gook is a director of the BC Environmental Network and Spirit Dance Cooperative Community, focusing on environmental stewardship and Indigenous collaboration. He also works with First Nations and other groups through Silvequus Selection Systems to advance natural selection forestry practices.
As a founding member of the Cariboo Horse Loggers Association in 1980, Gook believes there's a better way to log.
He also opposed Imperial Metals' Mt. Polley mine鈥檚 tailings storage pond. It failed in 2014, becoming the country's largest toxic chemical spill. It's an incident Gook says he doesn't want repeated.
Abraham is the former Lake Babine First Nation Chief Councillor. During his time as chief councillor, the Firwt Nation received $50 million to build culture centres and other buildings and negotiated a deal with the province to gain control of 20,000 hectares of Crown lands within its traditional territory.
Abraham was defeated in a bid for a third three-year term this June by running second to Wilf Adam, himself a former chief councillor. Six candidates were in the running for the top office in that election.
Meanwhile, incumbent Rustad was first elected as a B.C. Liberal in 2005 for Prince George-Omineca, which was later renamed Nechako Lakes. Under Premier Christy Clark, he served as Minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation and Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations.
In Aug. 2022, Rustad became an independent after he was removed from the party by B.C. Liberal leader Kevin Falcon for retweeting a controversial post suggesting climate change is not caused by carbon dioxide emissions. Before being removed from the caucus, he was the B.C. Liberals' forestry critic.
In March 2023, Rustad was acclaimed the leader of the then-dormant provincial Conservative party. Since then he has grown the provincial Conservative party by absorbing defecting MLAs from BC United (the new name for B.C. Liberals). He eventually swallowed the B.C. United party so that only the B.C. Conservatives are the main party facing the NDP. They are now running neck and neck.
-With files from Rod Link
