B.C. NDP, Conservative leaders campaign in the Okanagan

B.C. Conservative interim leader Lorne Doerkson announces the party’s investment in wildfire mitigation in Summerland, B.C., on Friday, Oct. 2, 2026. Doerkson was joined by Conservative candidate for Penticton-Summerland Tracy St. Claire, and Summerland resident Joel Patan, who lost his home in the Bald Range wildfire in August. (Aaron Hemens / The Canadian Press)

KELOWNA — British Columbia’s major party leaders took their election campaigns to the Okanagan Friday to talk about fire safety and the high cost of groceries.

Interim Conservative party leader Lorne Doerkson is promising to spend half a billion dollars on a fleet of Crown-owned water bombers and cutting-edge technology, including artificial intelligence, to fight the growing threat of wildfires, if the party is elected on Oct. 24.

Doerkson said the proposed plane purchase and the innovation fund are part of a larger plan to improve the response to wildfire through more on-the-ground prevention and less bureaucracy.

NDP Leader David Eby stood outside a Kelowna grocery store on Friday to announce additional plans to improve affordability by putting price caps on certain groceries items, such as eggs, butter and milk.

He said that his party, if re-elected, would cap unfair increases on staples through price guards on corporate retailers, setting hard ceilings on retail margins for every-day essentials.

“We have seen prices on the basics climb beyond inflation,” he said.

“So, what we are going to do is put the same protections in place we have for farmers,” he said, referring to marketing boards that regulate their products.

Doerkson made his announcement in front of a rural property that burned down last month during the Bald Range wildfire, which destroyed more than 80 homes in Faulder, B.C., and forced thousands of people to flee from nearby Summerland.

“We are here today because British Columbians deserve a government that will act before the smoke appears on the horizon,” he said.

“We owe it to our kids. We owe to our forestry workers and we owe it to communities like Summerland, like Lytton, like Clinton to take back control of our forests.”

Doerkson, who spoke next to property owner Joel Patan and local Conservative candidate Tracy St. Claire, said having a provincial water-bombing fleet will ultimately save money, given the escalating costs of fighting fires.

“We will protect our communities, we will safeguard our health care and education budgets by avoiding billions in emergency suppression costs and economic loss,” he said.

“Most importantly, we will do everything we can to ensure families like Joel’s never again have to flee their homes in the dark with two hour’s notice.”

When asked about the costs of buying the planes, Doerkson said the province could help pay for them by renting them out to other jurisdictions when they aren’t needed.

The NDP’s promise of a cap would be linked to six staples: milk, eggs, butter, cheese, chicken, and turkey, the party said in a statement.

These products are already regulated through marketing boards and the proposed measures would extend that protection to consumers, Eby said.

Just as farmers get their costs, government will put in measures that will cap the profit margins that large grocery chains can make off staples, Eby said.

He said his government would also introduce measures to prohibit predatory pricing and support smaller, independent grocery retailers.

This report by Wolfgang Depner of The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 2, 2026.