Saanich South

Saanich South sits at the junction of suburban Greater Victoria and the pastoral landscape of the Blenkinsop Valley, where greenhouses, small farms, and berry fields line the lowlands beneath Mount Douglas. The riding's western half includes the established residential neighbourhoods of Royal Oak, Broadmead, and Cordova Bay, home to families who commute into downtown Victoria along the Blanshard Street and Pat Bay Highway corridors. The eastern boundary follows the slopes of Mount Douglas Park down to Cordova Bay's waterfront, giving the riding a mix of suburban density and semi-rural green space.

Lana Popham had held the seat since 2009, making her one of the longest-serving NDP MLAs on Vancouver Island. She served as Minister of Agriculture from 2017 to 2022, overseeing major reforms to the Agricultural Land Reserve, and was appointed Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport under Premier Eby in 2022. The 2024 election saw her seek a fifth consecutive term.

Candidates

Lana Popham (BC NDP) — Popham had served Saanich South continuously since 2009, holding cabinet portfolios in Agriculture and in Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport. A geography graduate of the University of British Columbia, she grew up in Saskatchewan and on Quadra Island before settling in Saanich, where she and her family established Barking Dog Vineyard in 1997 — the first operation on Vancouver Island to achieve certified organic vineyard status.

Adam Kubel (Conservative Party) — Kubel was a project manager with more than thirteen years of experience in the public and private sectors, including work in anti-money laundering, environmental engineering, and information technology. He had spent the previous five years in the health care sector as a senior project manager and project management educator. He co-owned an online floral business and had lived in the riding for seven years.

Ned Taylor (BC Green Party) — Taylor, a lifelong Saanich resident, became the youngest-ever Saanich councillor and Capital Regional District director when he was elected at age nineteen in 2018. He served on council until 2022 and subsequently worked in the constituency office of federal Green leader Elizabeth May. At twenty-five, he was also training to become a commercial pilot.

Local Issues

The protection of the Agricultural Land Reserve continued to define the riding's politics. Popham's tenure as Agriculture Minister from 2017 to 2022 had produced landmark legislation strengthening the ALR, including the reunification of the reserve into a single zone and new restrictions on non-farm uses of agricultural land. In Saanich South, the Blenkinsop Valley's productive farmland sat directly adjacent to residential neighbourhoods under development pressure. The 2024 campaign tested whether voters would continue to support the NDP's regulatory approach to farmland preservation or respond to Conservative proposals to relax restrictions and give landowners more flexibility.

Health care access was the most frequently cited concern among residents, cutting across partisan lines. Thousands of Saanich South residents lacked a family doctor, and wait times for specialist referrals and diagnostic imaging at Royal Jubilee and Victoria General hospitals had grown during the NDP's second term. The district's aging population placed additional pressure on home care and long-term care capacity. The Conservatives proposed allowing private delivery of publicly funded health services as a way to reduce wait times, while the Greens advocated for community health centres that would lift administrative burdens from family physicians.

The District of Saanich's climate action planning intersected with provincial policy in concrete ways for voters in the riding. Saanich had adopted ambitious emissions reduction targets, and residents debated the pace of transition in transportation and building energy use. The NDP's CleanBC Roadmap, updated in 2021, set a target of reducing emissions by forty per cent below 2007 levels by 2030. But the Conservatives' promise to scrap the provincial carbon tax resonated with some residents frustrated by rising energy costs, creating a fault line that ran through the riding's environmentally engaged electorate.