Doug Holmes will be running for mayor of Summerland in the Oct. 15 civic election.
Holmes has served as a Summerland councillor for the past eight years, as a director on the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen board for the past four years, and a director on the Okanagan Basin Water Board for the past two years.
He has been council liaison to the Summerland Chamber of Commerce, the Summerland Arts Council, and the Summerland Secondary School youth council. He represented council on the Downtown Neighbourhood Plan Task Force, Cultural Plan Task Force, and the Chamber of Commerce’s Task Force on Affordable Housing.
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“I think I’ve proven myself on council over the years and have shown I know how to listen, know how to question, and know how to get things done,” he said. “I have a full understanding of all the issues facing the community, not just in certain areas of interest. As mayor, I’ll be able to hit the ground running and provide the leadership that Summerland needs.”
In addition to his work in local government, he is involved in other community work.
He is the founding chair of the Summerland Refugee Sponsorship Group, which has sponsored refugee families from Syria, Eritrea and South Sudan. He is also the former co-chair of the South Okanagan-Similkameen Local Immigration Partnership Council, former vice-president of South Okanagan Immigrant and Community Services and has helped organize the Slava Ukraini fundraiser earlier this year to support war victims in Ukraine.
Holmes has been named a Paul Harris Fellow by the Summerland Rotary Club. This is the highest honour the club can give to a member of the community.
He is also a certified tennis instructor and recipient of a Tennis Canada award of excellence for developing the game at the community level. He developed the youth program at Lakeshore Racquets Centre andhas coached hundreds of Summerland youth through after-school lessons, summer camps, leagues and tournaments and the Summerland Secondary School tennis team.
Holmes has lived in Summerland since 2004, following an international career in business and journalism. He was a global expert on e-government and an early advocate of the use of Internet technology in the public sector. Based in Paris and London, he worked for Microsoft for 10 years and authored the book, eGov: e-Business Strategies for Government (2001), an international business best-seller that has been translated into seven languages.
He has also been a magazine publisher, newspaper editor, foreign correspondent, and a CBC radio reporter. His first book, Northerners: Profiles of People in the Northwest Territories (1989), is based on interviews he conducted early in his journalism career in the Canadian North.
Holmes has visited more than 90 countries and every province and territory in Canada. He has a degree in journalism and political science from Carleton University in Ottawa.
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