Kelowna-Rutland’s Empty Chair: The NDP Wants Trust Without Taking the Forum Questions
If a party asks a new riding for confidence, it should be willing to face voters in the same room as its opponents.
Castanet’s Kelowna-Rutland by-election report puts a simple fact in front of voters: NDP candidate Roly Russell did not attend the Tuesday Kelowna forum covered by the outlet. The Russell campaign told Castanet he was focusing on contacting voters directly. Direct voter contact is part of any campaign. It is not a substitute for a public forum where undecided residents can hear candidates challenged side by side.
The same Castanet story reported that Russell also skipped an earlier Westbank forum. Moderator Mark Thompson told the outlet the invite had been sent and that organizers received no response from the campaign. That is harder to square with a campaign asking for trust in a riding Russell has not previously represented.
This matters because forum accountability is not limited to the people in the room. Local coverage lets residents who could not attend review the basic question: which candidates faced public scrutiny, and which did not. On that record, Russell’s campaign chose private outreach over the shared forum stage.
Russell is not a blank slate. Castanet identified him as a former Boundary-Similkameen MLA now running in Kelowna-Rutland. That experience should make public questioning easier, not less necessary. Voters are entitled to ask why a former MLA seeking a new seat would miss open candidate forums at the very moment the riding is deciding who should speak for it.
Castanet also described Conservative candidate Tara Armstrong as widely considered the front-runner. That makes the forums more important, not less. When a race has a perceived front-runner, the challenger’s job is to test the record, defend his own, and let voters see the contrast. An empty chair does the opposite. It leaves the public with campaign claims, filtered messages and after-the-fact explanations instead of direct answers.
The NDP’s broader campaign pitch depends on competence, accessibility and trust. Those words mean little if local voters cannot get their candidate in the room for basic scrutiny. A forum is not a trap. It is a normal democratic checkpoint: show up, answer questions, let citizens compare judgment, priorities and temperament.
Kelowna-Rutland voters do not have to accept the idea that private outreach cancels public accountability. Doorsteps matter. Phone calls matter. So do open rooms where everyone can hear the same answer at the same time. If Russell and the NDP want this riding’s mandate, the minimum price is plain: take the questions in public before asking voters for power.