Front Burner - Why rivals turned allies and scrambled B.C. politics

Episode Date: September 3, 2024

The B.C. United Party has suspended its election campaign and encouraged supporters to join forces with the Conservative Party of B.C., with the aim of bringing together the right-of-centre vote ahead of next month's provincial election.This is a dramatic turn of events given that the two parties' leaders – Kevin Falcon of B.C. United, and John Rustad of the B.C. Conservative Party – were bitter rivals.Rob Shaw covers B.C. politics for CHEK news and Glacier Media. He explains the dramatic reversal, how it came to be, and what this shifting political landscape might mean for the upcoming election.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Ali Janes, in for Jamie Poisson. So last week, Kevin Falcon, the leader of B.C.'s official opposition, the right of center B.C. United Party, stood in front of a room of reporters to make an announcement ahead of next month's provincial election. The presser looked pretty standard, mundane really, except that he was standing next to his political rival, John Rustad of the BC

Conservative Party, and he was about to dramatically change the province's political landscape. And all of you that know me know that there is nothing more important to me, my children and your children and grandchildren, that we not give the NDP one more day in power than they absolutely have to have. And that's why I made the decision that I made as leader of BC United to suspend our campaign. I will be withdrawing our candidate nominations. And in cooperation with John Rustad, we will work together. That means that the BC United Party, formerly the BC Liberals, who were in power for 16 years prior to losing to the NDP in 2017, were collapsing as a party

and being absorbed by the BC Conservatives, a party that until recently was basically a non-factor in BC politics. These are some pretty stunning facts on their own, but even more so when you think about how these were rival centre-right parties whose leaders had a lot of beef. Just a couple weeks ago at a BC United press conference, party officials actually used a literal tinfoil hat when talking about John Rustad. The hat bore the BC Conservative Party logo and the words 5G resistant endorsed by John Rustad, one of several times they've accused him of being a conspiracy theorist.

I've got Rob Shaw with me to explain this dramatic reversal. He covers BC politics for Czech News and Glacier Media, and we're going to talk about how this happened and what this shifting political landscape might mean for the upcoming election. Hello, Rob. Thank you so much for joining us. Hello, Ellie. see understand just how wild all of this is. I think we really need to understand how dominant the BC Liberals, which was the former name of BC United, how dominant they were for years and years and years. And so can you just paint us a picture of what a dynasty this party once was in BC? Yeah, well, I mean, this series of events that you outlined has unraveled 20 plus years of that dynasty, where you had a lot of work done in the 1990s to unite the center right in BC. We have a legacy of center

right governments in our province. The NDP has only won a small handful, half a dozen elections over the years. And so every now and again, the center-right collapses and then it comes together. And this version, the BC Liberal Party, was in power with premiers by the name of Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark, who had big profiles on the national stage. And they, for a while, felt like they were the natural governing party of this province that had nowhere to go but up. And now that party simply fails to exist. I mean, they were called liberals, but they were not affiliated in any way with the federal liberal party. And this is really a center-right party, right?

That's right. Yeah. We don't have affiliations with federal parties in BC, except for the New Democrats. So the BC Liberals weren't a provincial wing of the federal liberals, which caused a lot of confusion over the years. They were a provincial coalition of federal liberals and federal conservatives and, you know, try to bring everyone together in what they called the free enterprise coalition, which worked for a while until it didn't work. So now let's talk about the leader of this now, I guess, former party. So Kevin Falcon was a longtime member of BC's Legislative Assembly. He held several senior cabinet roles with the BC Liberals, and then he became the leader of the party a couple of years ago. And you've pointed

to this as like a moment when things started to really fall apart for these guys. So how was Falcon trying to reshape the party? Yeah, I mean, you can go back to them failing to form government in 2017 as the moment that really started the decline. Clark has been pushed from power. Her governing liberals defeated today in a confidence vote. The motion as amended is carried. In the May election, the Premier only managed to win a minority government. The BC NDP and Provincial Green Party brokered a power-sharing deal aimed at overthrowing Clark.

Combined, they have more seats than the Liberals. That led to a series of leadership races. more seats than the Liberals. That led to a series of leadership races and Kevin Falcon throwing his name into the hat for the second leadership race. And he was kind of the establishment candidate, a link to the past, because he was a B.C. Liberal cabinet minister, deputy premier, finance minister, minister of health, minister of transportation. So everyone looked at Kevin Falcon and thought,

here's a guy who can get us back to where we were if we're a BC Liberal member. There is a desire like I've never seen before for candor, for competence and for leadership. And there is also a desire for leaders who will bring people together and who recognize... And that leadership race, in retrospect, was a kind of a critical moment because there were other people who put their name forward, including a gentleman named Aaron Gunn, who is kind of a new generation of young conservative, a very Pierre Polyevra young conservative. young conservative and he wanted to take a run at the what he thought was a free enterprise coalition and was disqualified over his social media activity and some of his views here's what they say to approve mr gunn's candidacy would be inconsistent with the bc liberal party's commitment to reconciliation diversity and acceptance of all british colombians the four tweets they highlighted going through my my years and thousands of posts on social media one was was a complete nothing burger and the

other three were all derivative of each other where i basically pushed back against the notion that canada was a genocidal state that committed genocide in an attempt to exterminate indigenous people. That led to a quiet revolution of, yes, well, Falcon did win the leadership, ultimately. An entire group left the party quietly. And we would see later on the sort of the ramifications of that come back in several ways. So as I understand it, you know, Falcon was really trying to make sure that his version of the party was like fiscally conservative, socially progressive. I mean, you've noted some of the tensions of kind of this other wing of the party not wanting that to be the future of this party. thing that people have argued was like pretty pivotal to the party's fortunes in a bad way, which was that he decided to rebrand the BC Liberals to BC United. And so how does that seem to have played with British Columbians? Well, to be fair, you know, Kevin Falcon was facing a series of kind of difficult decisions because the landscape is shifting out from underneath him and it's becoming more strongly centre-right

with the rise of the federal Conservatives. He's trying to keep the party in the middle. And that led to a series of decisions, one being to change the name of the party. I'm sensing a lot of excitement from members about it. What we're really thinking of when we use the word united and BC United as our potential name is uniting British Columbians across way more than affiliation.

Even before he got there, he ended up kicking out of the party, John Rustad, who we now know went on to become the conservative leader. But he kicked him out over basically kind of sharing some views on social media, questioning the role of CO2 and climate change. He ejects John Rustad, Rustad disappears. Then he gets busy trying to rename the party to BC United, which he said would be a better indicator through name that this is a united version of federal liberals and conservatives. And they also wanted to distance themselves from the federal liberals,

which they viewed as very unpopular. Justin Trudeau's polling numbers are in the tank. And they thought, we don't want to go down with the federal liberals in the next federal election. So he executed both of those moves. And when we look back on both of them, they proved to be, I think history will record mistakes that echoed through the next kind of year and a half to two years of BC politics. I mean, why was it such a mistake to change the name? Yeah, so in theory, it sounds great. In theory, it makes sense, right? But the problem was that the party didn't put any resources behind the name change, even right up until a few months ago when the party surveyed its own members and discovered that half didn't know that they had changed the name

that it just like who's this party like yeah they thought it was a soccer team it's a bc united it's a soccer team um and so that that caused them to to plummet in the polls and it just sort of it helped kickstart what became a death spiral. Whereas the BC Conservatives have a name that looks like the federal Conservatives, even though they're not affiliated, they have the same color, the same shape logo. rise, sort of linked to the federal party, even though they're not, and the United collapsing as it tries to change its name away from the Liberal Party, which they weren't linked federally to as well. And that played out kind of at the same time. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections.

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That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. Okay, so I want to pick up on something that you were talking about earlier, which is Falcon kicking John Rustad, and again, this is now the leader of the conservatives, out of the then BC Liberal Party. So tell me more about that story and how these two guys from the same party ended up becoming bitter rivals. Yeah, John Rustad was a very sort of quiet, low-key BC Liberal cabinet minister. He ended

up in opposition with the rest of his colleagues and then began to espouse some controversial views online, specifically about climate science and the role of CO2 in climate. And that caused him to be at loggerheads with then leader Kevin Falcon, and he refused to back down. And that led to the sort of controversy that saw him fired from the party. You know, I don't mind if people have contrary opinions to mine. I'm used to having people that disagree with me. And I think sometimes that makes for a better debate, frankly. But the problem with John is, as I always said to him, is that this is a team sport. But he is not a guy that anyone in British Columbia would have pointed to three, four years ago and thought, here is the leader of the new movement. But nonetheless, he has seized the moment and the opportunity

and worked really hard and ended up in the position he's in. We are going to be going through a process between the two parties to make decisions as to who would be the best to be able to field to bring an end to David Eby and the destruction he's bringing to British Columbia. Yeah, and so the Conservatives have had this absolutely meteoric rise. I mean, this is a party that only captured 2% of the popular vote in 2020. And now they have risen to incredible levels. They're almost tied. They're almost tied with the NDP, which is incredible.

Tell us more about this party. I mean, who they are, what they believe in, and what their leader, this former liberal who was kicked out of the party, John Russ said, what he and his party believe in and what their leader, this former liberal who was kicked out of the party, John Russ said, like what he and his party believe in. Well, remember when we were talking about the Aaron Gunn ejection from the liberal leadership race, he and his supporters, young federal conservatives, went out to find a new home and they found this kind of, you know, sort of derelict abandoned bc conservative party that hadn't gone anywhere and they took it over they took over the board they

took over the executive they rebranded it as we've talked about to kind of look exactly like the federal party uh aaron gunn went on to become and is currently the federal conservative candidate for north island powell river here on vancouver island So he's part of Pierre Polyev's team, which also blurs that line a little bit. And they started just sort of drafting behind the federal conservatives. And when John Rustad showed up, he wasn't a natural fit, but he did have a seat in the legislature. And when he chose to come to the party and cross the floor that gave the party its first seat. The issues that were picked by the you know Rustad and his crew became hot topic issues nationally too. So we're talking about trans athletes in women's sports. We introduced a piece of legislation first in Canada that

actually was called the Fairness for Women and Girls in Sports and what it's designed to do is say that biological men cannot compete against women and girls in sports. And what it's designed to do is say that biological men cannot compete against women and girls in sports in British Columbia. And the intent of that is not to exclude anybody, but not to take the rights of one people to give to the rights of another people. We're talking about sexual education in schools. People of various sexual orientations and gender exist.

Of course they do. Of course they do. So why not support a policy that simply promotes inclusivity of that? Because that policy has led to materials in schools, which quite frankly, I could not say on air. You would have to censor it. There's pictures in books showing children having sex, and that to me is just wrong. Do you have evidence of this? Yes, I do. I've

seen the books. Talking about drugs and addiction and very much the federal conservative philosophy of ban the drugs and get rid of safe supply and crack down on crime on the streets. We can't be afraid of utilizing a jail for criminal activity. There's a problem in British Columbia. It is unaffordable. You can't find housing. We have a huge problem with drugs and with crime. And people are saying... So all those things come together with this sort of modern young crew and the federal conservative quasi-brand and a seat in the legislature. And it takes off under kind of this meteoric rise, as you mentioned. Okay, so BC United and their leader, Kevin Falcon, often branded Rustad and the Conservatives as conspiracy theorists.

So tell me more about why they were doing that. Like what kinds of issues were they pointing to? What kinds of things that members of the party had said would cause them to call them conspiracy theorists? Yeah, the original. So when the Conservatives are just sort of taking off, they're looking for candidates and they go out there and start signing a bunch of people up. And it turns out that a proportion of them are, for lack of a better term, wackos. And they have all these crazy views that come out over a series of months. So there's a doctor who's suspended by the provincial college here in BC who believes that COVID vaccines give you magnetic powers.

There's most recently a woman who believes that 5G wireless signals to your phone are part of a genocidal global effort and that wireless signals alter the structure of oxygen. Prince George McKenzie, BC Conservative candidate Rachel Weber, was promoting claims on social media that 5G cell towers are genocidal weapons and the cause of the COVID-19 pandemic. I don't believe that Rachel Weber believes that. She was simply sharing information. That's certainly not something that I believe. I support all of our candidates and the work that they're doing. I'd like to say I'm not going to allow cancel culture to take root in this province. So all these things begin to kind of add up for the conservatives. And it's interesting because if the Conservative Party right now on the eve of the election was to go out and find 93 candidates in British Columbia, they would get a ton of really good people, local politicians.

And some of those folks have come over. But there was an original crop of candidates from the conservatives before they became super popular. And the party is trying to contend with that now because it doesn't want to be branded as conspiracy theorists. It doesn't want to be branded as untrustworthy in the minds of voters. I mean, we mentioned Russ Dad's, you know, some of the things that he said about climate change and some of the things that he's posted on social media. Climate change has been caused by human activity, yes? I'm saying that humans have contributed to climate change, yes. Okay. Is it at a crisis level?

It is not at a crisis level. There are many more things that I think are far more important. But what about other issues? Because that's not the only kind of point of tension that he had with the Liberals, right? And some of his beliefs. It's not, but that's pretty much all the Conservatives have put out. There are very few policy positions for the party that exist right now. And it is fascinating for us to watch the polling that is coming out on the Conserv conservatives on issues like balancing the budget and certain things where people show a lot of confidence in the party. It has no fiscal policy. It hasn't put one out. So there is a disconnect between what it is standing for and the polling numbers. And that gap will fill during the election when we do get the platform. But right now, it's a party focused mainly on law and order, addictions, the overdose crisis, cracking down on safe supply, fighting against the decriminalization experiment that the BCNDP government put in, picking up on hot button social issues.

don't know what its solutions or policies are for many other things. It's talked a bit about healthcare and the use of private clinics to reduce wait times, but that's a real disconnect. And it causes confusion here of what are people supporting? You know, the NDP has a seven-year track record in government, and it's tied in polling with a party that has almost no policies. Just to understand how we got to this point where, again, this is the conservatives versus the NDP. Again, last week, Falcon gives this big announcement saying that BC United is bowing out of the election. And I mean, this is obviously pretty, pretty shocking, right?

Because as recently as last Tuesday, he was calling the conservatives a conspiracy party. This is a very bitter rivalry. So, I mean, what the heck is going on here? Like, why did he do this? Yeah. And you mentioned those tinfoil hats. I have one of those. There's like a little bit of memorabilia that I've got at my desk.

So, well, like I mentioned, a death spiral. So as the polling numbers show that people don't know the new name and the party sinks lower and lower and the conservatives rise above it, the donors start to change their positions and the business community starts to back the conservatives and put money into the conservatives. And then we have candidate defection and suddenly now they have multiple MLAs in the legislature. And there's real concerns that we would have a center-right vote split in the election so that instead of voters who are more social or fiscally conservative being able to line up behind one party and challenge the NDP, they'd split their votes off into two and the NDP would win a super majority. And this pressure

rises on Kevin Falcon to bow out, basically. And had this occurred a year ago, the pressure would have been on John Rustad to bow out. But falcons in the weaker position politics is praise on the weak and eventually he decides to shut the whole thing down he has 50 plus candidates and he turns them over to the conservatives and says hopefully is of how some of these BC United candidates are feeling right now. Because, you know, again, they're now kind of a party without a home. We don't know if the conservatives may take some of them or what is going to shake out today or in the next couple of days. But I mean, I imagine a lot of them feel like their leader just threw them onto the bus. Because it was a leader's decision, ultimately, and many of them learned about it as it started to leak out on the day that it was announced. The United Party's constitution allows the leader unilaterally to withdraw the candidacies, the nominations of the members.

And so what happened is Kevin Falcon went to his board and did that. And suddenly there were no candidates. And what really upsets many of the BC United candidates and incumbents is that they had been fundraising like crazy. So they have tapped their friends, their family, their donors, people who are cutting checks thinking they were supporting their local friend and colleague running and that money went straight to the party. And when their candidacies were withdrawn, they didn't get to keep any of the money. So the party has all of the money. And if you are a candidate, and you're thinking about running as an independent, maybe you're crossing to the Conservatives, you have to start over and fundraise, you know, three weeks before the election begins fundraise from scratch. That really ticks a lot of people off. And you hear some United candidates

talking about running independent. There's a lot of tough feelings and that Kevin Falcon feelings that Kevin Falcon pulled the rug out from under people and wasn't honest about the negotiations he was going through. And just the week before he did this, held a huge fundraiser with 600 people and most of the lower mainland candidates at a farm and brought in thousands and thousands of dollars, which people thought were going to them, which turns out was going to the party, which has a bunch of money, but no candidates. Wow. So, I mean, that touches on the people who gave them money on the candidates. What about BC United voters here? Because, you know, for people who were previously supporters of this party, people who maybe were more in the center, who might be tired of the current NDP government, but who also disagree with some of the beliefs of the conservatives that you were talking about, where does that leave them? It's a great question. It is the question of the election now, because when you end up with a two party race, and we're not counting the BC Greens, who are a very small part of this, but two parties, one on the left and one on the right, the NDP and the Conservatives, they come in with their own bases, their own voters

that they know they can get out. And the real fight to win is who can pick up the undecided middle road voters. And those are what we typically call centrist voters. But I think the definition of that is changing a little bit. But nonetheless, the question will be for the two parties, do they moderate their views to come into the middle a little bit and pick up those voters? And where do those voters go? And the thinking is that many of them go with the NDP provincially. is a little bit more extreme now than it was under our previous leader, John Horgan. Leader David Eby is doing different things, and it's not a sure thing that those voters go that way. So that's the election battle in a nutshell. It's two very polarized, distant parties now fighting and trying to find those center voters and appeal to them. And we'll see who manages to pull that off by election day. All right. Well, we're going to be watching this closely. Rob Shaw,

thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me on, Allie. All right. That is all for today. I'm Allie Janes. Thank you for listening to FrontBurner, and we will talk to you tomorrow.