By Shachi Kurl, President
British Columbians know to prepare for earthquakes. But they never quite know when one will hit, nor how intense the impact will be.
The collapse in recent days of what was, for nearly 20 years, B.C.’s natural governing party, is a political earthquake of such magnitude, it has not only levelled the ground in the upcoming provincial election campaign but also realigned the west coast political scene into something much more familiar to people outside the province. And depending on how you feel about it all, one may thank — or curse — Pierre Poilievre.
For generations, B.C. provincial politics has marched very much to the beat of its own drum. The era of Social Credit government provided a home to traditional and economic right-wing voters until its collapse in the ’90s, replaced by the BC Liberals who were anything but Liberal in the federal political sense of the word. That party, which hasn’t governed since 2017, dumped two leaders, changed its name to “BC United,” watched its polling numbers plummet and finally suspended its campaign in recent days, leaving many of its candidates, volunteers, donors and voters without a political home.
So, the centre-right (for now) is dead in British Columbia. Its lunch was nibbled by the incumbent B.C. New Democrats on the centre left, and roundly munched on from the harder right by the B.C. Conservatives, a party that in the last election garnered less than two per cent of the popular vote. Nothing could more clearly demonstrate the power of branding.