A pre-election concession has turned British Columbia politics upside down and could replace a center-left government with a hard right ruling party that is skeptical about climate change, even in the face of heat domes and record fire seasons. The province goes to the polls in just six weeks.
The B.C. United party, official opposition in the British Columbia Legislature, has suddenly suspended its campaign and thrown support to a resurgent Conservative Party. The result is to unite the right against the governing New Democratic Party (NDP), which has been in power since 2017 and seemed solidly entrenched with two parties splitting the conservative vote.
Support for BC United had plummeted in recent weeks with four of its legislators defecting to the Conservatives. “This is the right thing to do for British Columbia,” BC United leader Kevin Falcon said at a joint news conference with Conservative leader John Runstad. “I know that the best thing for the future of our Province is to defeat the NDP and we cannot do that when the center right vote is split.”
Days ago, however, BC United was putting out a news release entitled: “Microchips and Antichrist? John Runstad’s wacky candidate spreads more conspiracy theories.” It slammed a Conservative candidate in Prince George for saying that microchips and credit cards signal arrival of the Antichrist and the impending Rapture.
Kevin Falcon, the BC United’s leader, is withdrawing his reelection candidacy as are other members of BC United. The Conservatives will be able to pick and choose members of the defunct party to run under their banner. Several BC United incumbents were caught by surprise at their leader’s capitulation.
Although a former provincial cabinet minister, Kevin Falcon will go down as a klutz of Canadian political leaders. He first moved to change the name of what was long-ruling (not very liberal) Liberal Party to BC United. The change of party names confused voters and caused party support to plummet in the polls.
Falcon then kicked Runstad out of the BC United caucus in the Legislature. Runstad took the helm of a Conservative Party which had captured only 2 percent of the vote in British Columbia’s last provincial election.
B.C. Premier David Eby, leader of the New Democrats, reacted with scorn. “They are embarrassed at how they ran the province and they both have changed their party names and want to avoid any association with the 16 years that they were in government,” he told a news conference.
The right has united before. A three-way split allowed the New Democrats to take power in 1972 with just 39 percent of the vote. They proceeded with a sweeping series of reforms. They raised the minimum wage, taxed the mining industry, created new provincial parks, and passed legislation to halt conversion of farmland to urban sprawl.
The free enterprise forces united into the (now defunct) Social Party and swept the 1975 election. NDP Premier Dave Barrett lost his seat in the Legislature. While well organized, the New Democrats have a ceiling of about 46 percent of the vote.
Why the Conservative surge? A surge in housing costs and availability is a major cause. So is an urban-rural split similar to that in America. Rural B.C. backs multi-billion-dollar oil and gas pipeline projects, especially the tripling of the Trans Mountain Pipeline carrying oil from Alberta to an export terminal in Burnaby, just east of Vancouver. Urban environmentalists and the NDP sought to stop the project.
The B.C. election will be a curious mirror of America’s presidential contest. Urban Vancouver and Vancouver Island lean to the NDP. Northern and eastern British Columbia will vote Conservative. Suburbs and exurban ridings (districts) will decide the outcome.
Under the parliamentary system, the party capturing the most legislative seats forms the government. Its leader becomes premier. Under this British-like system, the executive and legislative branches are as one.
This article also appeared in Cascadia Advocate. With this link to Cascadia Advocate.
Shouldn’t be too much of a surprise to see pushback since the Canadian center left has undermined its credibility by unthinking support for the unsubstantiated story of residential school murders.
Most Americans will be surprised to find out that after all the horrendous heartbreaking stories, NO bodies have been found ….and what’s even weirder is that there have been NO forensic investigations i.e. no digging. So it’s really not clear what — if anything — actually happened.
But it’s a good hammer with which to pummel guilt-inclined whites to accept all sorts of social justice programs.
Umm: https://theconversation.com/we-fact-checked-residential-school-denialists-and-debunked-their-mass-grave-hoax-theory-213435
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/canadas-residential-schools-were-a-horror/
Ruth,
Thank you for supporting my point.
It’s not known whether anything actually happened because we don’t know if there were any bodies! Because no one has dug!
So yes, it’s impossible to prove that there is a hoax because there are no facts — one way or the other.
We don’t know if there are bodies and so we don’t know whether the people died of illness or murder or what.
The ruling party was also facing a burgeoning public backlash over drug decriminalization, which (like in Oregon) they recently reversed.
True.
I should have framed the residential school situation as just one example..
Was the Liberal Party that BC United sprung from the same as the national Liberal Party (Justin Trudeau, Jacques Chretien et al.)? In overly simplistic comparisons, I thought of the national Liberals as center-left, the (Progressive) Conservatives as right or center-right, and the NDP as European-style socialists/progressives.
No borders for the hard left’s hate of religion. Can’t pass up an opportunity to dump on the Catholic Church… when refuted no apology or correction just sweep it under the rug. …then get in line in the Church’s feeding, clothing, housing, AIDS ministry, etc
Joel,
I hope you will do the research and write up your account of what’s going on with the residential school deaths or murders (or whatever they were.)
You have good sources in Canada.
And it’s a very big story which many are scared to cover.
Thanks for your analysis of what’s happening in BC. While I’ve met plenty of MAGA-wannabes, most don’t support a shift to the right. Unfortunately the NDP has bungled its privileged position and people are ticked off about basics: unaffordable housing, urban sprawl, a sense that high-minded policy doesn’t trickle down.