By Cheryl Jahn

Sheldon Clare ready to help

Oct 9, 2024 | 3:17 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – Just another day at the BC Conservative headquarters in town, putting together signs to post around the city in the days before the general election. Clare is a Prince George boy, born and raised, but the Prince George-North Cariboo is a new territory. And it’s a riding that is nearly the size of Belgium.

“The challenge in this riding is its geography. It has a great deal of variety and people and strong urban parts of both in Prince George and in Quesnel, and yet a very strong rural component. And the way I see it, it’s a microcosm of the whole province,” says Clare.

This is not Clare’s first foray into politics. In the 1980s, he ran for City Council but after a hiatus., he pursued the federal nod as an Independent in 2015. He has been with the College of New Caledonia for years and was President of the National Firearms Association for more than a decade. And he describes what he sees as his role as a potential MLA.

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“The job of an MLA is, ultimately, is to help people.”

The BC Conservative Party has been mired in controversy over its choice of candidates, Clare included. But he says it’s just the cost of doing business.

“Oh, sure,” he’s quick to respond. “I expected that right from the start. And I mean, I had been hearing comments from some of my friends who were involved in other political parties who were saying, ‘You know, Sheldon, the talk is that they’re going to go after you and they’re going to say these things.’ And and I’ve been looking at some of the quotations of people I’ve known for a while, and I’m looking at them just rolling my eyes and think ‘Okay, whatever.'”

Ultimately, he says he would not have taken this leap without family support.

“I talk to my daughters and my daughters said to me, ‘Dad, why is everything so expensive?’ And I paused and I looked at them. I said, ‘Well, it’s 50 years of successive governments making very poor decisions.’ And I thought to myself, ‘I don’t want to see my daughters not being able to prosper in this province when there is so much opportunity that should be available to everyone.'”

But what he really says is important: Vote.