Seismic Shift in BC Politics
This week, BC United Leader Kevin Falcon suddenly announced that the BC United party would be suspending their campaign, clearing the way for the increasingly popular BC Conservative party to have a legitimate shot at winning the next election.
The number one goal of the suspension of the BC United campaign, echoed over and over by Kevin Falcon and BC Conservative leader John Rustad in a joint press conference held on Wednesday afternoon, is to put together a team that can beat the NDP in the coming election. Even with the BC United polling at around 10%, that still could pull enough support away from the BC Conservatives to hand the NDP another term in government. The vote on the right would be split. This decision aims to eliminate that vote split and allow the parties on the right to present a united front against the incumbent government in the coming provincial election on October 19.
A History of Liberal Collapse
The BC United’s collapse, and even the renaming of the BC Liberals to BC United last year, is part of a broader trend in western Canada.
As recently as 2008, the Liberals in Alberta were the official opposition, though they haven’t formed government since 1917. Liberals there have failed to elect a single MLA in the last two elections.
In Saskatchewan, the Liberals haven’t been the official opposition since 1995 and were last in government in 1967. They too failed to elect any candidates in the last five elections and changed their name to the Saskatchewan Progress Party in 2023.
In Manitoba, the Liberal party was last in power in 1953 and last in the official opposition in 1988. The party has staved off entire extinction, electing 1-3 MLAs in the last 9 elections.
The BC Liberals were the last stronghold of a liberal named party in western Canada. They won four elections in the twenty-first century (2001, 2005, 2009, and 2013), including the largest ever win in BC’s history (77 of 79 seats) before losing the 2017 election by a single seat. As late as May 2023, a month after they changed their name from the BC Liberals to BC United, the party appeared to be in a solid position. It seemed to be only a matter of time before British Columbians would tire of the NDP and turn to the BC Liberals when they were ready for a change in government.
Obviously, that dream has been dashed in one of the most dramatic collapses of a political party in recent Canadian history. Just 15 short months ago, the BC United party was a government in waiting. Now they’ve announced they won’t be running any candidates in an election that is only seven weeks away.
So, what happens now?
The BC Conservatives had nominated over 80 candidates and the BC United over 50 candidates. Election BC requires all candidates to be nominated by September 28th, one week after the campaign officially starts. The party leaders announced that they will be working to field the best possible slate of candidates from between their two pools of candidates. The majority of the candidates that will be ultimately running under the BC Conservative banner in the election will likely be the Conservative candidates nominated already, but some more experienced or competent BC United candidates might be added as well.
What remains to be seen is if key BC United candidates, volunteers, and employees try to keep the party going in some fashion. Will some candidates, disgruntled by the discontinuation of the BC United campaign, run as independents? Will remaining BC United voters vote for the Conservatives or refrain from voting at all? Will BC United supporters move to the NDP with their time, money, and expertise? It is unprecedented in modern Canadian political history for a major party to suspend their campaign this close to an election, so there are a wide variety of unknowns that will need to be solved in the next few weeks.
But, as we’ve outlined in past articles, the demise of political parties and elections provide new opportunities to raise issues with new candidates. Issues that were once off the table are now back on the table. Incumbents who have held their seats for decades may not be running again. This is a time of political renewal in the process. Every citizen should seize this opportunity. Don’t just vote on election day. Get to know your local candidates. Volunteer for a campaign. Donate to a political party.
These opportunities only come around every four years. And the death of one party and resurrection of another only comes around once in a generation.
Four Reasons for the Collapse of BC United and the Rise of the BC Conservatives
But how did all this happen? And why did it happen so suddenly?
It seems there are four fundamental reasons for the BC United party’s collapse and the commensurate rise of the BC Conservatives.
Reason #1: The popularity of the federal conservatives in BC
The federal Conservatives elected Pierre Poilievre as their new leader in 2022 after ousting Erin O’Toole earlier that year. Ever since, the federal Conservative party has increased its popularity in British Columbia dramatically. In particular, it has been making political hay around opposing the legalization of hard drugs and promising to bring back housing affordability, two problems which plague BC more than other Canadian provinces.
Not to insult the intelligence of the average Canadian, but most Canadians don’t well understand the difference between the federal government and the provincial government. Nor do they understand that the federal Conservative and provincial Conservative parties are completely distinct entities. Couple that general lack of clarity with a hyper focus on federal politics at the expense of provincial politics, a general despising of Justin Trudeau and the Liberal brand, and high profile of Pierre Poilievre, and I suspect that many British Columbians now simply hear the word conservative and say, “that’s who I want.”
It doesn’t matter that there are differences between the federal and provincial parties. It doesn’t matter about the quality of the local candidates or unorthodox policy positions held by some within the BC Conservatives. They simply have the right name and the right time.
But that wasn’t enough to propel the BC Conservatives to where they are today. A second ingredient was needed.
Reason #2: A real leader for the BC Conservatives emerges
The BC Conservatives, despite being British Columbia’s first ever political party, hadn’t elected an MLA in almost 50 years. In that span, they only won more than 5% of the popular vote once. They churned through leaders every election cycle. In the 1986 and the 2017 elections, they didn’t even have a leader.
The BC Conservatives were dead in the water.
But that all changed recently. On August 18, 2022, MLA John Rustad was kicked out of the BC Liberal caucus for two reasons. First, he was removed after sharing posts on social media that doubted the extent to which carbon dioxide emissions were contributing to climate change. Second, he was charged with not returning leader Kevin Falcon’s phone calls. In a team sport like party politics, breaking ranks with the party on a major policy file is a heresy. Defying the leader is treason.
In order for political parties to function effectively, they need coordinated messaging. They need a leader who is willing to make tough decisions. They need discipline. But there is a balance. If party discipline is too lax, the party can get in trouble from wayward comments from candidates that can cost the entire party credibility, money, and votes. If the party discipline is too tight, then the party represents a dictatorship more than a vehicle for democratic engagement.
The BC Liberals tipped too far into the tight party discipline quagmire. In the middle of the 2020 provincial election, Chilliwack MLA Laurie Throness was forced to resign from the party over various public policy disagreements. In 2022, Aaron Gunn was prevented from running for the leadership of the party. Overly tight party discipline led Rustad to cross the internal line and also get booted from caucus.
Just over a year after Rustad was ejected, Abbotsford MLA Bruce Banman voluntarily left BC United. One of the main reasons for his decision was so that he could finally speak freely, after being forced to hold his tongue on many issues, particularly the province’s handling of COVID-19. Together, Rustad and Banman gave life to the BC Conservative party and secured the party official party status for the first time in recent memory. And – with no offence intended against any of the previous BC Conservative party leaders – the party finally had a leader with the experience, profile, and energy to make it a viable party.
Reason #3: The failed rebranding from BC Liberals to BC United
The general animosity to anything labelled liberal (thanks to Prime Minister Trudeau) and constant confusion from voters about how the BC Liberal party wasn’t anything like the federal Liberals, prompted the decision of the BC Liberals to change their name. After all, the federal Liberals were always a party on the left of the political spectrum. The BC Liberals were on the right, the party of free enterprise. And so, Kevin Falcon, in his race to replace Andrew Wilkinson as party leader, promised to change the name of the party if elected.
Within a year, Falcon followed through with his promise. With the preferred new name of the party – the British Columbia party –unavailable, he opted for BC United. This name was an unfortunate choice for a few reasons. First, it sounds more like a soccer club than a political party. Second, some drew negative connotations from the word united, tying to Alberta’s United Conservative party. And third, although the name was chosen to portray unity, the party was anything from united, as the booted Throness, the rejected Gunn, the ousted Rustad, and floor-crossing Banman could attest.
For all these reasons (as well as plain old human nature that is used to familiarity and resistant to change), the rebranding of the BC Liberals to BC United did not go well. The public, not following politics closely between elections, didn’t realize that the party had changed its name. It plunged in the polls following the name change, and the Conservatives rose in the polls. Only five months after the name change, BC United and the BC Conservatives were tied in the polls. For a few months, the parties appeared deadlocked in the public polling. In February, Conservatives opened a lead over the BC United that has only continued to grow. Polls in the last month have pegged the BC Conservatives between 35-39% and BC United between 9-12% of the popular vote. (The NDP were between 36-43% and the Greens 8-11%.)
Reason #4: The lack of political representation on the right side of the political spectrum on several political issues
And finally, there are policy issues at stake. In the deal-making process last week, Kevin Falcon admitted that he probably agreed with John Rustad and the Conservatives on 75% of the issues.
But some of the issues in that 25% matter. Especially to reformed Christians.
Take SOGI. SOGI, which stands for sexual orientation and gender identity, is the vernacular name for a suite of policies, inclusive environments, and educational resources designed to promote acceptance of homosexual and transgender identities in schools. One such policy was requiring all schools (public as well as independent) to expressly prohibit bullying based on sexual orientation or gender identity. With other prohibited grounds for discrimination – such as appearance, grades, or character – not mentioned, this has the effect of elevating a student’s gender identity or sexual orientation to an exulted status of identity.
Inclusive environments translated into gender neutral washrooms, change facilities, and showers and teachers referring to students – no matter their age or maturity – by their chosen pronouns.
The BC Liberals were the party that enshrined gender identity and sexual orientation into BC’s Human Rights Code and required schools to adopt those anti-bullying policies. While leader Kevin Falcon stated that he is in favour of parental involvement, age-propriety, and transparency in education, he refused to be specific what that might mean for SOGI.
The BC Conservatives, on the other hand, and some specific candidates in particular, have been vocal opponents of SOGI and have promised to scrap it entirely. This is a position that no other major party has ventured to propose, despite growing concerns over SOGI throughout British Columbia.
Or take independent schools. The BC Liberals have generally been supportive of the status quo for independent schools, namely that most independent schools receive 50% of the funding that their public counterparts receive. But the BC Conservatives, in their policy handbooks, support changing the funding model for all schools. Their goal is that funding will follow the student, regardless of which school a parent chooses – public school, independent, or home school.
Unfortunately, one issue that both BC United and the BC Conservatives agree on is abortion. Both leaders had publicly stated that they have no intention of restricting abortion whatsoever. After the BC March for Life on the steps of the BC legislature, BC Green leader Sonia Furstenau insisted that each party clarify its stance on abortion. Falcon declared that “women have the right of choose” and “that has been the position of the party for a long time.” Rustad insisted that abortion “is not a provincial issue and that no politician at the provincial level can change that [1988 Morgentaler] decision.”
