PENTICTON — Penticton-Summerland MLA Amelia Boultbee announced Monday she will not seek re-election on October 24.
Elected as a BC Conservative by a razor-thin margin of 317 votes in 2024, Boultbee crossed the floor to sit with the BC NDP in July. In a statement posted to social media, she stated she cannot mount a snap campaign following her switch. Nominations close on October 3.
"After careful consideration, I have made the difficult decision to no longer pursue my candidacy in Penticton-Summerland with the BC NDP," Boultbee wrote.
She revealed that her July 3 floor-crossing carried a "heavy personal toll," stating she has faced "public and private threats, abuse, and alienation."
Boultbee maintained she took no extra pay or portfolio for joining Premier David Eby's caucus. She claimed her switch was intended to give the riding a major-party voice and prevent the government from collapsing following the death of Vancouver-Strathcona MLA Joan Phillip on August 28.
"Because I crossed the floor so recently, I am unable to marshal the kind of campaign necessary to give the NDP a fair shot in this snap election," she wrote. "I am stepping aside not because I want to quit, but to make way for a more winnable candidate in these circumstances."
Despite stepping down, Boultbee pledged her continued support for Eby and urged constituents to vote BC NDP.
Voters first sent Boultbee to Victoria on October 19, 2024, when she narrowly defeated NDP candidate Tina Lee by 317 votes. As a lawyer and fourth-generation Pentictonite, she previously served on city council before jumping to provincial politics.
By July, she pivoted to the NDP, criticizing her former party as "consumed with divisive, Donald Trump-style populism". On Monday, she doubled down on those criticisms.
"The problems with the B.C. Conservatives are not fixable, maybe not ever and certainly not on the timeline British Columbia needs," she wrote on Monday.
Boultbee's exit leaves the Penticton-Summerland riding wide open.
OneBC leader Dallas Brodie has already backed former Conservative leadership candidate Warren Hamm for the contest.
Neither major party has officially named a candidate in the Penticton-Summerland riding.
Boultbee joins a growing exodus of high-profile MLAs opting out of the October 24 vote, including cabinet ministers Lana Popham, Kelly Greene, Ravi Kahlon, and Brenda Bailey.
Nominations close at 1:00 p.m. Pacific on October 3. Advance voting runs from October 16 to 21, with final voting day set for Saturday, October 24.
