Penticton

The Penticton riding, encompassing the city of Penticton along with Summerland, Naramata, and surrounding communities in the South Okanagan, had been held by the BC Liberals since the party's rise to power. The long-serving MLA Bill Barisoff had retired before the 2013 election, and Dan Ashton, the former two-term mayor of Penticton, had won the seat that year in a competitive race. Ashton was seeking re-election as a backbench MLA. The riding's economy was driven by tourism, agriculture, and the wine industry, but an aging population and affordability pressures were emerging as concerns.

Candidates

Dan Ashton (BC Liberal Party) — Ashton was born in Edmonton but raised in Penticton from infancy. After graduating from Summerland Secondary School and attending university, he returned to work in his family's retail business, which had locations across the Okanagan, Kootenays, and Lower Mainland. He served as a Penticton city councillor from 1999 to 2008 and was mayor from 2008 to 2013, also chairing the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen for ten years before entering provincial politics.

Tarik Sayeed (BC NDP) — Sayeed was a Penticton city councillor and entrepreneur originally from Bangladesh. He founded Baby Taxi Inc., a technology startup that developed gesture recognition software to translate American Sign Language into text and audio. He took a leave of absence from city council to run in the provincial election.

Connie Sahlmark (BC Green Party) — Sahlmark had spent three years studying in the Sustainable Construction Management Technologies program at Okanagan College, which focused on green building, renewable energy, and resource conservation. Her campaign emphasized transitioning the Okanagan economy toward clean energy and technology sectors to create well-paying jobs and lower the cost of living.

Local Issues

School closures were a significant and emotionally charged local issue. In 2016, the Okanagan Skaha School District had moved to close three schools — Trout Creek Elementary in Summerland, West Bench Elementary near Penticton, and McNicoll Park Middle School in Penticton — in response to a projected funding shortfall and an enrollment decline of thirty-six percent since 2001. While provincial Rural Education Enhancement funding helped keep two of the three schools open, McNicoll Park was shuttered, and the episode underscored broader concerns about education funding levels in the riding.

The opioid crisis was an increasingly visible issue in Penticton, which was experiencing a disproportionately high rate of overdose deaths relative to other Okanagan communities. Residents pointed to the absence of detox beds in the city, limited access to treatment facilities, and year-long waitlists for addiction treatment services. Housing affordability and homelessness were also growing concerns, as rising property values driven by the tourism economy put pressure on lower-income residents and strained the capacity of local social services.