Erin Shum is back with the Non-Partisan Association (NPA).

Shum has returned to the fold after sitting as an independent commissioner of the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation for one-and-a-half years.

Shum bolted the NPA in late 2016, accusing her NPA colleagues in the park board of bullying her.

“She has joined the party, and we’ve accepted her membership,” NPA president Gregory Baker told the Georgia Straight by phone Tuesday (July 31).

At the time of the interview this morning, Baker was preparing to release a list of NPA candidates in the October 20, 2018 municipal election.

Asked if he has spoken to Shum, Baker said: “No, I haven’t.”

On whether Shum filed an application to run as an NPA candidate, Baker responded: “No, she hasn’t.”

Shum gave birth to a baby girl last June.

Shum stunned the NPA in a park board meeting on December 12, 2016 when she did not support her then NPA colleague Casey Crawford in the election for a new board chair.

At that meeting, Shum nominated Green park commissioner Michael Wiebe, who went on to become chair.

In a statement the following day, Shum described how she was treated in the NPA park board caucus.

"I ran for the Park Board in 2014 to offer a collaborative, new-generation approach," Shum stated. "After years of dysfunction and division, I ran to be a voice for communities—in a new government that listened for a change.

"Since then, my values have been increasingly unwelcome in a leaderless and rudderless NPA caucus that demanded obedience above all else," she continued. "A caucus that bullied me when I listened to seniors and young families and voted against fee increases. A caucus that repeatedly threatened to kick me out when I objected to ripping up the platform we ran on and steamrolling volunteer community center associations—just like the previous administration we ran against."