Sean Smith, a Canadian Armed Forces veteran and local businessman, has announced that he is running to be the BC Conservative candidate for the Courtenay-Comox riding, in the upcoming provincial election.

鈥淲hen I arrived at 19 Wing Comox in June of 2000, I fell in love with the area. From the scenery to the lifestyle, the Comox Valley was just full of potential. Now I drive along Cliffe Avenue and I am saddened by the visible decline鈥�.

Smith joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 1986, as a reservist with the BC Dragoons in Vernon. After completing a United Nations Peacekeeping tour of duty in Cyprus, Smith found his way into full-time service with the reserves and spent the majority of his service working everywhere from CFB Lahr (West Germany) to 19 Wing Comox, where he retired from the CAF in 2001.

Since leaving the forces, Smith has done work ranging from owning his own IT company, to being a well-known social media educator and coach (Smith was the author of the 2014 viral Facebook post 鈥淒ear BC Ferries鈥� in 2014), to managing security operations and doing business development for an Island-based security company.

鈥淥ver the years, especially over the past five years, I have watched NDP policies create havoc in our communities. I have watched the opioid crisis get out of control, our unhoused population grow almost daily, and watched our citizens struggle to make ends meet in a province that has the highest cost of living in the entire country.

鈥淚 have been involved, on and on, with the BC Conservative Party for the past 20 years. What was once a party of in-fighting and extreme right ideologies, is now an organized, cohesive and focused party that has the potential to refloat a ship that is sinking fast. You can鈥檛 tax your way out of climate change, you can鈥檛 solve a drug crisis by making it easier to access and hold hard drugs, and you can鈥檛 make the cost of living more affordable by making things more expensive.鈥�

He adds: 鈥淚t鈥檚 time for a common sense change.鈥�

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