OneBC fights to have 2 ‘unaffiliated’ Surrey candidates on B.C. election ballot
Published 11:40 am Friday, October 9, 2026
Two Surrey riding candidates listed as unaffiliated in the B.C. election are caught in a OneBC party fight with Elections BC that could end up in court.
“Paperwork technicalities” prevent James Yaroshuk (in the Surrey-Guildford riding) and Denis R Hurtubise (Surrey South) from having OneBC affiliation on the election ballot, according to Wyatt Claypool, party communications director.
He said OneBC may go to court to appeal Election BC’s decision to mark them and three other B.C. candidates “unaffiliated” in the Oct. 24 election.
“We might now have to fully go to court to basically say, ‘Hey, we were the ones cc’d on all these emails’ or ‘We were the ones sending all these campaign packages to Elections BC from our (email) account — it’s clearly us,’ and Elections BC is trying to drag its feet and say, ‘Well, you know, there’s paperwork issues.”
Yaroshuk says it’s a frustrating situation for him as a first-time election candidate.
“I signed up with OneBC because I believe in their platforms and their grassroots movement, and I was hoping to lean on their expertise for this first campaign,” he said. “Because I’m not affiliated with them any longer, that reduces the amount of help that I can get from them.”
The Now-Leader spoke to Yaroshuk on Thursday (Oct. 8), the day his name was scrubbed from the OneBC website along with Hurtubise.
“They are going to give me as much help as they are legally able to with the Elections BC rules,” Yaroshuk said. “I do know that they’re still trying a couple of last-minute things to get me on the ballot as OneBC, but at this point I’m moving forward as an independent in my campaign.”
Two other candidates with connections to OneBC, but listed as unaffiliated on Elections BC’s website, are Helen Scott in Peace River South and Lee-Ann Bates in Port Coquitlam. In Vancouver Yaletown, Timothy Webster is no longer listed as a candidate. In Burnaby North, candidate Jenny Yamagata now has OneBC next to her name due to party efforts, according to Claypool.
Yaroshuk, who works in carpentry, says his name is on the ballot in Surrey-Guildford because B.C. has become an unaffordable province under NDP leadership.
“I haven’t liked the way that the province has been running for quite a while now, and I figured that instead of just, you know, grumbling about it to people around me, I could actually run and try to make a difference, get my name out there and try something,” Yaroshuk said.
“I’ve lived in Surrey my entire life and I used to own a home and then I was unable to afford it anymore as prices raised and had to sell it,” he added. “Now, there’s no way of getting back into the market for me without, like, winning the lottery or something. Housing is a big platform that I would run on.”
—with files from Tricia Leslie