Saying he’s seeing “areas of concern” wherever he goes, the NDP’s candidate for Kamloops-Thompson-Nicola in the forthcoming election says he intends to listen to voices, particularly in the smaller communities within the redrawn political map.

The NDP confirmed on Monday that it’s tapped Miguel Godau to be the Party’s candidate in one of two ridings set to represent Kamloops in the House of Commons in the next session.

Godau currently lives and works in Castlegar in the Kootenays but tells Radio NL he intends to be active in the communities in the electoral area.

“I reached out to a lot of family and people that I’m connected to across different areas in the riding.  One of the things that people responded with is that people want to connect face-to-face,” said Godau in conversation with Radio NL.

“I do plan to go out and visit the different communities across the riding,” added Godau.  “To set up times where I can meet people in a coffee house or somewhere that’s successful for people to come and ask questions.”

Godau joins the race in Kamloops-Thompson-Nicola as the fourth candidate to be confirmed by their respective Party.

He takes the reigns from Bill Sundhu, an international human rights lawyer and former provincial court judge, who ran for the NDP against Frank Caputo and others in 2021.

While he remains on the Riding Association Executive, Sundhu decided against putting his name forward this time around.

Godau, who is in his early 40’s, comes into the contest with community and union activism in the BC General Employees Union, as well as a background in helping young people.

Trained as a councillor and psychotherapist after first starting out his career doing outreach action on behalf of the Elizabeth Fry Society in Ashcroft, Godau was raised in that community before moving on to different ‘ports of call’ in his career.

This includes his current stop in Castlegar, where he runs a team through the BC Government’s Department of Child and Youth Mental Health, providing counselling and other mental health services in communities remote areas in northern BC and northern Vancouver Island that might not have enough mental health ‘boots on the ground.’

Godau says he put his intentions out to the NDP, making it known that he had the desire to run for office.

This included a bid earlier this year to be the NDP candidate for Similkameen-South Okanagan-West Kootenay (formerly South Okanagan-West Kootenay) after incumbent Richard Cannings decided not to run again.

While that didn’t pan out for him, losing the nomination to now NDP candidate Linda Sankey, he says the match up with the opening for a candidate in Kamloops-Thompson-Nicola fit well.

He says the “concerns” he sees as a mental health expert relate to core issues such as affordability, housing and access to mental health care and other social programs.

“Working in this field and then being a volunteer or community-engaged person, these things are always intertwined with politics,” said Godau.  “This was an opportunity to not just be quiet in the background.”

With his ties to the region, having been raised in Ashcroft, the Party decided to tap his enthusiasm to run, as those associated with the Party in Kamloops have told Radio NL the available crop of prospective local candidates to run was not very active this cycle.

For Godau, he says it was his grandparents who — as long time CCF and NDP supporters — enshrined a sense of community in him at a young age.

“They were always involved in their communities, and they were always telling me as a kid… I can hear my Opa’s (grandfather) voice saying ‘when you’re in a community you just can’t take from it, you have to give back.  And to give back, you have to be involved’.”

Godau finds himself up against Iain Currie for the Liberals, Chris Enns from Clearwater representing the People’s Party of Canada (PPC) and Conservative Frank Caputo, who is the incumbent from the former Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo riding.

That riding has since been redrawn to include areas to the south and west of Kamloops, including Cache Creek, Ashcroft, Logan Lake, Merritt and other communities in the Fraser Canyon and the southern Cariboo.

While the Green Party has run candidates in the past, it’s not clear if the Party does intend to put out a candidate during this campaign in Kamloops-Thompson-Nicola, as its previous entrant in 2019 and 2021, Iain Currie, is now the Liberal candidate.

The Green Party and any other person or political party hoping to be on the April 28th ballot still has a week, end of day on April 7th, to file nomination papers.