Liberal candidate for Chilliwack-Hope promises to revive plan to build candy-themed amusement park

Lack of funding sidelined 20-year-old project to build CandyLand before first phase of construction was over

“CandyLand is baaack!” 

That’s the motto of newly chosen Liberal candidate Meenk Van Suikergoed for the riding of Chilliwack-Hope.

Twenty years after construction began on phase one of the candy-themed amusement park on Luckakuck Way near Heritage Park, the zombie project is back and looking for brains.

“It’s taken so long some have forgotten what the project is all about,” president of CandyLand Entertainment Corp. Bill Coombes said this week, exactly what he said when ground broke on phase one in February 2005.

“Even with just the first phase, we expect to see tremendous tourism interest generated,” Coombes said. “The buzz so far is unbelievable.”

The sweet project, however, met with some sour patch kids and by 2008 it seemed dead in the water.

“We’re really disappointed that a themed outdoor recreational site could not be accommodated in that location,” then Mayor Clint Hames said at the time.

But with the selection of Van Suikergoed as Liberal candidate on the weekend, along with platinum sponsorship from the Dentists of B.C., the tooth-rotting tourism destination might be back.

After a mistaken email on the weekend that an out-of-town kid was acclaimed as Liberal candidate for Chilliwack-Hope, the local Liberal team were left to figure out what went wrong and find a new candidate.

"It's a big deal when a candidate is acclaimed locally,” explained electoral district association secretary Lory Oberst to the local paper, “but we knew something was amiss when we didn’t recognize the name and there was no warning.”

And while the local newspaper posted a 650-word story about the weekend's candidate kerfuffle, not one word of it answered (or even pointed out they asked) the most important questions: How did someone no one knows get acclaimed as the party's candidate? Who is Jake Sawatzky? Why was the email sent out?

“We didn't answer those questions in our really long statement because we didn't want to admit the mistake we made,” Van Suikergoed told me. “And luckily the reporter who wrote the story didn't even ask us, so, that was sweet.”

Speaking of sweet and switching gears, Van Suikergoed said he was chosen by the party late Monday over dozens and dozens of other prime candidates and now he's pushing forward with his CandyLand campaign platform. He insisted the plan put forth by Bill Coombes in 2005 and lauded by the mayor at the time never really died, it was always there waiting to be revived.

“As with a jawbreaker, Chilliwack just needed the patience to suck off the hard stuff and get to the prize,” Van Suikergoed said.

“A vote for me is a vote for fun. It's a vote for the kids.”

Once the project is complete they’ll begin marketing CandyLand with a fleet of windowless vans driving around the city, slow-rolling suburban streets as men ask chilldren if they want some candy.

“What kid wouldn’t be lured in by that?” Van Suikergoed said.

Pressed for details on the funding model for the project given how it fell apart in 2008, recent Dutch immigrant Van Suikergoed suggested all would come out in due time and that his critics were nothing but a bunch of “mierenneukers.”

After Googling "mierenneukers," Conservative candidate Mark Strahl responded to the CandyLand promise stating that if he is re-elected there is no chance taxpayer dollars will be going to fund such a frivolous idea. 

“I’m thinking more of a spaceship-themed amusement park,” Strahl said. “I've been on the phone with the SpaceX CEO and he's already on board as a sponsor. He seems like a really great guy, trustworthy, honest. His wave goodbye was a little disturbing, but I'm sure he isn't really a Nazi.”

Van Suikergoed responded that Chilliwack needs to stick to the sweet teeth not deep space. CandyLand, he insisted, is the winner Chilliwack needs.

“Strahl's idea is bad. He’s an entitled klootzak,” Van Suikergoed said, using another Dutch word that needs Googling.

For more on the project visit Van Suikergoed's website dedicated to the project, CandyLandIsBackZuigeling.nl

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