{"id":49446,"date":"2015-05-14T16:13:33","date_gmt":"2015-05-14T08:13:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=49446"},"modified":"2015-05-14T16:13:33","modified_gmt":"2015-05-14T08:13:33","slug":"former-b-c-liberal-mla-john-slater-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/05\/14\/former-b-c-liberal-mla-john-slater-dies\/","title":{"rendered":"Former B.C. Liberal MLA John Slater dies"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Former<\/a>
Former Liberal MLA John Slater (Twitter photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

VICTORIA — A former Liberal MLA who served one term in British Columbia’s legislature has died.<\/p>\n

John Slater, who was 63, was elected in 2009 as a Liberal in the riding of Boundary-Similkameen, but ended his career in provincial politics as an Independent after the Liberal party did not endorse his candidacy for the 2013 election.<\/p>\n

The B.C. Liberal Party said then that personal issues were behind the decision not to support Slater’s candidacy for re-election.<\/p>\n

The former mayor of Osoyoos acknowledged some personal problems, but suggested in 2013 that he may have ruffled feathers with his candid opinions on Liberal issues.<\/p>\n

Earlier, Slater said a combination of prescription medication, antihistamines and a glass of wine left him out of sorts in the legislature where he was seen swaying in the hallway.<\/p>\n

Premier Christy Clark paid tribute to Slater, saying he dedicated 30 years of public service to his community.<\/p>\n

“John lent his time to everything from coaching youth sports and volunteering with the chamber of commerce, to standing for public office — first as a councillor, then mayor, and finally as MLA,” Clark said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“But no matter what his official title was, John always thought of himself first and foremost as a farmer.”<\/p>\n

She said Slater laid the groundwork for modernizing the century-old legislation protecting B.C.’s fresh water and was proud of the new Water Sustainability Act.<\/p>\n

Slater’s hard work included a new high school in Oliver, B.C., and a new Horizon Health Centre in Osoyoos, Clark said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VICTORIA — A former Liberal MLA who served one term in British Columbia’s legislature has died. John Slater, who was …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":49447,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,18,483],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-news-ca","category-politics","mauthors-the-canadian-press1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}