Vanderhoof, Omineca Express

Elenore Sturko is now the only incumbent MLA still with CentreBC heading into the provincial elections, less than a week after eight sitting MLAs announced they would be joining the centrist party. Sturko told Today In BC Tuesday (Sept. 22) that the seven others, including the party’s incoming leader Peter Milobar, had rejoined B.C. Conservatives under interim Leader Lorne Doerkson. CentreBC’s president Mike Wignall slammed that decision in a statement.

The riding of Cariboo-Prince George has been officially renamed Cariboo-Prince George-Omineca. On Tuesday, Sept. 22, Todd Doherty, the member of parliament for the newly christened Cariboo-Prince George-Omineca, put out a release announcing the change. He explained this change came about following consultation with residents across the riding, especially in the Vanderhoof area.

Kevin Moutray will serve a second term as mayor of Vanderhoof after no other candidates came forward to challenge him in the 2026 general local election. Chief election officer Willene Perez confirmed Moutray’s acclamation on Sept. 21. Moutray, who was first elected mayor in 2022, brings over a decade of local government experience to the role, having served 11 years on council before his first mayoral term.

Organizers of a Terry Fox Run in Surrey welcomed special guest Alison Ince on Sunday morning, Sept. 20. Ince, one of Fox’s nurses at Royal Columbian Hospital during his final days, was at the Fraser Heights Village site of the annual charity run hosted by Terry Fox Foundation. Ince became media liaison for Fox at the hospital in New Westminster, where he died in June 1981. She remembers having to tell waiting media representatives that the Marathon of Hope hero had lost his battle with cancer.

Like she doesn’t already have enough fun as one of the oldest living citizens in B.C. Now, Vernon’s Ethel Dover – 106 years young – has a new weapon in her amusement arsenal: A Nerf gun. “She’s quite the mean shot,” marvelled Kim Magarvey, general manager at Dover’s home, the Aspira Orchard Valley Retirement residence, in downtown Vernon. “She’s also an avid reader and funny as heck.” Born April 8, 1920 in Winnipeg, Dover is being mentioned to help honour National Centenarian Day Tuesday, Sept. 22.

B.C. Premier David Eby got to take a look inside Simon Fraser University’s (SFU) new medical school in Surrey on Sept. 16. SFU’s Stephens Family School of Medicine invited Eby on a tour of the school’s temporary learning space and allowed him to meet the first cohort of medical students. The tour included demonstrations of several technology-based tools, including simulated patient-care rooms, medical mannequins, point-of-care ultrasound and virtual reality.

A bear that wandered into a business in downtown Hope has been euthanized. The bear entered the Hope Pharmasave on Wallace Avenue at about 2 p.m. on Sept. 20. It was accompanied by a small cub. The streets and nearby park were busy with tourist activity at the time, and several videos and photos of the bears surfaced on Facebook groups, including videos of people following behind the bears. At one point in a video, the bears walk between a vehicle and a drive-thru window.

Two people were killed in an early-morning crash in Enderby Monday. The Vernon North Okanagan RCMP are investigating the collision which took place Sept. 21 around 2:15 a.m. Police responded to a report of a single vehicle collision in the 1100 block of George Street. The investigation has determined the blue Volvo was travelling northbound on George Street when it left the road, colliding with a hydro pole and four parked vehicles in three different addresses.

After a week of speculation, Premier David Eby is expected to call a snap election Tuesday afternoon. He has called a news conference at 12:15 p.m. at Government House in Victoria. This is where he would need to go to meet with the Lieutenant Governor to “drop the writ” and dissolve the legislature. A provincial election called today could be as soon as Saturday, Oct. 24 – a week after the municipal elections.

Canadian actor Jason Priestley has shared the screen with many co-stars over his nearly five-decade career, but his latest might just be the biggest one yet. Joining the former Beverley Hills, 90210 teen heartthrob and co-star Cindy Sampson for the new television show Private Eyes West Coast is B.C.’s capital city itself: Victoria. And there’s no disguising the fact the comedy-drama has set up shop in the province’s ‘Garden City’.