EDITORIAL · SCOTT MCINNIS · COLUMBIA RIVER-REVELSTOKE
Scott McInnis is the only candidate in Columbia River-Revelstoke with a public record we could find on the Incomappleux and Rady Creek. He asked about the closures in the House, tabled the petition against the deactivation, and went to stand on the road. Here is that record, set beside the record of the two people running against him on 24 October.
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On the last morning the Legislature sat, Scott McInnis stood up with 1,500 signatures against the deactivation of the Incomappleux Forest Service Road.01 It was the only petition on a road deactivation in the whole parliament.02 Six weeks later he was on that road with the people who use it. The provincial ministers who were invited to join them stayed away.03
He sits for Columbia River-Revelstoke, the riding the Incomappleux and Rady Creek are in. He won it in 2024 by 670 votes, and the runner-up is running again.04 This is what he did about these roads, and how it compares with the record of the two people running against him.
Scott McInnis
Columbia River-Revelstoke · elected 2024 · Conservative candidate, 2026
In May 2025 he asked the Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship, on the floor of the House, why back-country access was disappearing:05
“Residents are already alarmed at an increase in arbitrary back-country closures without meaningful public consultation. Can the minister give an explanation to prospectors, hunters and everyday back-country users of why their access is being cut off at an alarming rate?”
Scott McInnis · Oral question in the House · Hansard, Issue 59, 8 May 2025The minister, Randene Neill, answered that “the very last thing we’re going to do is turn the back country off from folks who love to use it.”05 That sentence is still on the record today.
In February 2026 he raised it again in the budget debate:
“We’ve got to stop this arbitrary closure of the back country. It’s not a luxury for the people in my riding. It’s a way of life. You see closure after closure.
“No explanation. Roads deactivated. Access cut off. It has got to stop.”
Scott McInnis · Budget debate · Hansard, Issue 120, 19 February 2026Then, on 28 May 2026, he tabled the petition. This is the whole of it:
Scott McInnis“I rise to present a petition on behalf of 1,500 individuals who are vehemently opposed to the deactivation of the Incomappleux Forest Service Road.”
The House rose that afternoon and did not sit again, so no minister ever had to answer it. A tabled petition is a receipt, not a remedy, but it puts the road in the permanent record.
None of his shadow-cabinet roles has covered roads, forests or transport. He has held Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation and, since October 2025, Tourism, Resort Municipalities and the Columbia River Treaty.06 Nothing in his portfolio obliged him to raise any of this.
He made the same case outside the House. In May 2025 the BC Snowmobile Federation (BCSF) quoted him on the Incomappleux: “There are 150 private properties in this valley which will have access permanently cut off.”07 In June 2026, a week after tabling the petition, he told The Free Press that “Crown land access is vitally important to our identity and way of life as British Columbians.”08
He did all of that in the House as a Conservative member. On 2 September 2026 he left the Conservative caucus to sit as an Independent, and on 21 September he rejoined it; his statement on rejoining named “access to public land” among the province’s challenges.09 He is on the 24 October ballot as the Conservative candidate for Columbia River-Revelstoke.
On 8 July 2026 more than seventy people spent a day at Trout Lake, on the Incomappleux and at Rady Creek. They came from the BC Wildlife Federation, the Quad Riders Association of British Columbia, the Four Wheel Drive Association of British Columbia, the Association for Mineral Exploration, local clubs, and the villages of Nakusp and Salmo. The organisers’ account of the day put two sentences side by side:03
MLA Scott McInnis also participated, spending the day hearing directly from residents and stakeholders.
Provincial ministers and senior ministry officials were invited but declined to attend.
The same account records that local recreation groups had offered to maintain the road, and that they were told the offer would not be considered.03
The BC Snowmobile Federation’s account of Rady Creek reports one more step. It says it supports “the legislative request made by MLA Scott McInnis to utilize a temporary Wilderness Status road designation to legally stabilize the corridor asset.”10 That is the Federation’s description. The request itself has not been published, and it does not appear anywhere in Hansard.
Asked by Black Press in August why he keeps at it, he said: “You’ve got to yell to be heard. At the end of the day, we’ve got people living up there.”11
He has not fixed anything. In September CBC reported that the Incomappleux road had been deactivated, and the ministry told CBC that its decision on Rady Creek was final, with the road to close on 1 November.12 Showing up is the floor of the job, not the ceiling, and the test is what anyone does with the seat after 24 October. It is still more than either of his opponents has on the public record.
Three people are on the ballot in Columbia River-Revelstoke: Andrea Dunlop for the BC NDP, Scott McInnis for the Conservatives and Rana Nelson for the BC Greens.13
Andrea Dunlop finished second in 2024, 670 votes behind. She has taught French at David Thompson Secondary in Invermere for more than thirty years. She officially retired in June 2024 and still works at the school because of a teacher shortage. She has held no public office.14 Her campaign site lists nine priorities. Access, roads and the backcountry are not among them.15
Rana Nelson is a high-school teacher, writer and editor. She has served as a director of the Revelstoke Community Housing Society and ran for the Greens in the 2021 federal election, and she has held no elected office. Her stated priorities do not name access or roads.16 Her party’s platform mentions “public access” in a plan for parks and recreation, and says nothing about forest service roads.17
Andrea Dunlop
Columbia River-Revelstoke · BC NDP candidate, 2026
Rana Nelson
Columbia River-Revelstoke · BC Green candidate, 2026
| Question | |
|
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Public office held | MLA for Columbia River-Revelstoke since 2024 | None | None |
| On the floor of the Legislature | An oral question, a budget-debate speech and the Incomappleux petition | Not an MLA | Not an MLA |
| On the Incomappleux and Rady Creek roads | The petition, his public statements, and a Rady Creek request reported by the BCSF | No public statement found on either road | No public statement found on either road |
| On the road, 8 July 2026 | There on the day | Not named in published accounts | Not named in published accounts |
| Does the 2026 platform name road access? | Named “access to public land” in his statement on rejoining caucus09 | Not among her nine priorities15 | Not among her stated priorities16 |
Portraits · Conservative Party of BC, BC NDP and BC Green Party candidate pages
That is the difference, and it should be read fairly. Neither challenger has held office, so neither has had a floor to raise it from. No 2026 provincial forum has been held in the riding yet, so neither has been asked in public, and a candidate who has not been asked has not refused to answer.18
We searched the candidates’ own pages and platforms, the local papers and radio sites, the BC Snowmobile Federation and CTV, from 2024 to 9 October 2026. Facebook, Instagram and X require a sign-in, so those three platforms were not searched.19
The first chance to ask all three is the Columbia Valley Chamber’s provincial election forum on 13 October 2026, in the DTSS Theatre in Invermere. The Chamber is taking questions from the public in advance, through a form on its own website.18
We read all 188 House transcripts of the 43rd Parliament and tested every speaking turn for thirteen access terms, from “forest service road” to “backcountry”.02 McInnis used them in 17 turns. Three members sit for the neighbouring ridings with Kootenay in their names. Pete Davis of Kootenay-Rockies, a Conservative, used them in 2 of his 91 turns, and neither was about a forest road. Steve Morissette and Brittny Anderson, both BC NDP, did not use them once in 140 turns between them.20
Portraits · party and Legislative Assembly member pages
The only member who named Rady Creek on the floor of the House was Donegal Wilson of Boundary-Similkameen, in Forests estimates on 12 March 2026. She asked why a road gets re-sloped and stripped of its bridges when a “use at your own risk” sign would do, and she gave Rady Creek as her example; no other member said its name in the parliament. The Minister of Forests, Ravi Parmar, told her that anyone who owns land up a forest service road should know “there’s buyer beware.”21
McInnis has answered the third question with his feet. The others have not yet been asked. Put all three to every candidate on your ballot, in person or in writing:
Why two levels of deactivation?If a “use at your own risk” sign discharges the liability, why re-slope, replant and pull the bridges out of a road like Rady Creek, which Donegal Wilson told the House recreation has used for 120 years?21
Before a road goes, will the engineering, the cost and the alternatives be published?Local groups offered to maintain the Incomappleux and were turned down.03 At Rady Creek the ministry told CBC in September that its decision to deactivate the road is final, and set the closure for 1 November.12
Will you come and stand on the road?On 8 July more than seventy people spent the day on these roads. One MLA came; the ministers who were invited did not.
All three candidates publish contact details on their campaign pages: Andrea Dunlop (BC NDP), Scott McInnis (Conservative) and Rana Nelson (BC Green).22 The letter below puts all three questions to every registered party at once, wherever you live in British Columbia.
Seven images that carry this story on their own: what Scott McInnis did in the House and on the road, how often the Kootenay members used the access words, and how his record compares with the two people running against him. Made to be posted and shared.
Randene Neill portrait on slide 2 · BC NDP, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Scott McInnis took the Incomappleux to the Legislature and stood on the road at Rady Creek.
He is the Conservative candidate in Columbia River-Revelstoke, the riding these roads are in. In May 2025 he asked the minister on the floor of the House why back-country access was being cut off “at an alarming rate.” In February 2026 he told the budget debate: “Roads deactivated. Access cut off. It has got to stop.”
On 28 May 2026, the last day the House sat, he tabled 1,500 signatures against the deactivation of the Incomappleux Forest Service Road. On 8 July he joined residents on the road at the Incomappleux and Rady Creek. Ministers were invited and declined.
“You’ve got to yell to be heard,” he told Black Press in August.
He has not fixed it. CBC reports the Incomappleux road was deactivated, and the ministry calls its Rady Creek decision final. Showing up is the floor of the job, not the ceiling.
His two opponents, Andrea Dunlop (BC NDP) and Rana Nelson (BC Green), have never held public office, and we found no public statement from either on these roads. Neither has been asked in public yet.
Ask all three at the first forum: 13 October, DTSS Theatre, Invermere. Will you come and stand on the road?
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