OneBC names Warren Hamm as their candidate in Penticton-Summerland

PENTICTON - OneBC leader Dallas Brodie named former Conservative leadership candidate Warren Hamm on Wednesday as the party’s candidate in Penticton-Summerland, a 317-vote Conservative hold that sitting MLA Amelia Boultbee took to the NDP in July.Brodie posted a park-bench video with Hamm and billed the contest as one for "Penticton-Summerland-Naramata." Elections BC’s name for the riding is Penticton-Summerland, not "Penticton-Summerland-Naramata" (even though the community of Naramata technically sits within the boundary)..“That’s a riding that elected a Conservative in the last election. She won by 317 votes, and as we all know, that Conservative has now left the Conservative Party and joined, not just gone independent, but actually gone across the floor to the NDP,” Brodie said in the clip. “That is not what Penticton-Summerland-Naramata wanted.”Boultbee quoted the announcement and offered a correction, “Lemme help you out. The name of the riding is ‘Penticton-Summerland.’.Hamm is a licensed aircraft maintenance engineer and contractor who has lived in Rossland for more than 25 years. The drive from that house to Penticton is about four hours. When he declared for the Conservative leadership in December 2025 — first out of the gate after John Rustad’s ouster — local coverage said he had been preparing to seek the Conservative nomination in Kootenay-Monashee, the riding that covers his home ground.On Wednesday he said he has been splitting time. “Over the last three years, I have met many of you in the community while maintaining residences in both Rossland and Penticton,” he wrote. “The community has been incredibly supportive as we have cared for our aging mother.”.He called himself a “builder not a bureaucrat,” repeated the line from his leadership campaign, and said the voters who elected a Conservative in 2024 deserve someone whose values “will not change simply to suit a shifting political landscape.” The NDP, he wrote, “is not an option.”.At the Juno News Conservative leadership debate in New Westminster on April 8, Yuri Fulmer opened by walking the room through every time the BC right had divided and lost — 1972, 1991, 1996, 2017, 2024. Fulmer’s answer was the March 30 "Unite the Right" accord with Brodie: OneBC would stand down in 88 ridings if he won the leadership; Conservatives would clear five unnamed seats for OneBC. Asked in the lightning round whether they would back a pact with OneBC or any deal that left Conservatives short of a full slate, Findlay and Iain Black held no. Hamm held yes.He quit the race four days later and endorsed Fulmer. .“Standing next to him on that debate stage sealed the deal for me,” Hamm said in the withdrawal statement the Fulmer campaign released April 12. “It’s clear that Yuri is the only candidate who has what it takes to protect this party, unite the right, and truly deliver for British Columbians.”That night in Langley he put the arithmetic on the leftover field: “Six of us splitting the vote, there is risk that we won’t get the strongest leader.” The next day on X he made the same point about himself and Fulmer. “Both of us splitting the vote in the middle made little sense.”.Findlay won the May 30 membership vote. The accord died with Fulmer’s loss. OneBC is now putting a name on a ballot in a riding Conservatives held by 317 votes..Boultbee took Penticton-Summerland 11,615 to 11,298 over the NDP’s Tina Lee on October 19, 2024 — 41.37% to 40.24%. She left Rustad’s caucus on October 20, 2025, sat Independent, and crossed to Premier David Eby’s New Democrats on July 3. The NDP gained a South Okanagan seat it had lost by a handful of ballots 21 months earlier. Donegal Wilson, the neighbouring Boundary-Similkameen Conservative, later left Findlay’s caucus and joined the still-unnamed vehicle around Peter Milobar and Ian Paton.OneBC is a registered party with one MLA. It lost official status in the Legislative Assembly in December 2025 when Tara Armstrong left after an internal fight with Brodie. A recognized caucus needs two sitting members. Brodie stood the party down in the Abbotsford-Mission byelection so Findlay could try to enter the House on September 26. Communications director Wyatt Claypool later told the Western Standard on September 3 the party had never picked a name there and had not discussed a general-election stand-down map..Penticton-Summerland is the opposite choice. Conservatives have not named a local candidate.The Milobar–Paton group has not said whether it will, although Milobar did say on Wednesday he has "a goal" to field a Party candidate in every riding during the next election..CentreBC exists as a third centre-right brand but have also failed to produce a set candidate for the riding at this time.Hamm’s own post assumes a snap writ “sooner than expected.” Until Eby calls one, the only calendar on the table is the Abbotsford-Mission vote nine days from Thursday.

OneBC names Warren Hamm as their candidate in Penticton-Summerland

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