43rd British Columbia general election

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

I'm not saying that "free enterprise" terminology necessarily harms anyone - its just so dated and vestigial.  

It is vestigial, but these things often are. I mean, the same could be said about the label "Progressive Conservative" which is still used by many provincial Tory parties. It dates back to a leadership convention in 1942, when the popular Liberal-Progressive Premier of Manitoba, John Bracken, agreed to lead the Tories on condition that they add "progressive" to the party name, because Bracken's personal brand was heavily tied to the agrarian progressive movement of the 1920s.

The "progressive" part of PC isn't really about ideology, and it's certainly not an accurate description of many politicians who continue to use that label. It's about a deal struck 82 years ago by the Tories to draft one specific man to be their leader. And the way we use the term "progressive" in 21st century politics is quite different from what it meant to early 20th century agrarians like John Bracken.

Hell, Social Credit was like that too. It's named after a weird 1930s monetary theory that they themselves abandoned very soon after they became relevant. The Social Credit dynasty that ruled BC during the Cold War era never even tried to implement social credit ideology or policy, it was entirely a vestige of a brand that had once been popular in rural Canada during the Great Depression.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

So wait, am I right in assessing that basically the entirety of the collapse of BC United is because of the name change?

LOL

Someone from BC might know better, but my understanding is that the rebrand just confused a lot of people at first, and that can have an impact in the polls. Let's say around this time last year, if I'm a typical federal Tory/provincial Liberal voter in BC, but I don't follow politics too closely, I might not even know about the BC Liberal rebrand. The polling prompts are NDP (dirty hippies), Green (dirty hippies), BC United (what?), and Conservative. Well if you're a federal Conservative voter and you don't know what BC United is, just by process of elimination, you would pick Conservative. Not to mention BC Conservatives had already made gains in 2020, and I think that confusion alone gave them enough of a polling boost, which subsequently led to more people taking the BC Conservatives more seriously. Again, just spitballing here.

I also wonder if it's just that calling yourself a Conservative is kind of an asset in the current climate. Like people aren't voting for John Rustad, polls show that his unknowns are still very high for a leader in his position, and David Eby still has a better net favourable. Halfway across the country, Doug Ford has become fairly unpopular, yet the PCs still poll in majority territory and actually gained support in a recent byelection in a key swing seat. In theory, neither Ford nor Rustad should be doing as well as they are. But both Ford's party and Rustad's party have "Conservative" in their name, and the CPC hasn't consistently polled this high literally since the party's founding. So it's possible that CPC's polling boost federally is having a "downballot" impact of just making people more favourable to parties that have "conservative" in their name.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

That’s all true but it’s not like this is the first time the Conservatives have been riding high in BC federally. The Tories did very well in BC during the time of the 2005, 2009 and 2013 BC elections and the BC Liberals were led at the time by people who were very rightwing but who had strong federal Liberal pedigrees like Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark. Ironically, Kevin Falcon is the first federal Conservative to become leader of the B.C. Liberals and its under his leadership that that party is collapsing at the expense of the BC Conservatives

*Federal Liberals calling themselves Liberals*

Right-wing British Columbians: "Long live Campbellism-Clarkism-Jonathan Wilkinson thought!"

*Federal Conservative not even pretending to be a Liberal*

Right-wing British Columbians: "Get lost Kevin Falcon you damn LIBERAL"

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

That’s all true but it’s not like this is the first time the Conservatives have been riding high in BC federally. The Tories did very well in BC during the time of the 2005, 2009 and 2013 BC elections and the BC Liberals were led at the time by people who were very rightwing but who had strong federal Liberal pedigrees like Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark. Ironically, Kevin Falcon is the first federal Conservative to become leader of the B.C. Liberals and its under his leadership that that party is collapsing at the expense of the BC Conservatives

But yes this isn't the first time the BC Cons have polled high, but surely they haven't polled this high in recent years right? There used to be the odd pre-writ poll that had them in the teens, but polling in the 30s is new and a much bigger threat to BCU.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

That’s all true but it’s not like this is the first time the Conservatives have been riding high in BC federally. The Tories did very well in BC during the time of the 2005, 2009 and 2013 BC elections and the BC Liberals were led at the time by people who were very rightwing but who had strong federal Liberal pedigrees like Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark. Ironically, Kevin Falcon is the first federal Conservative to become leader of the B.C. Liberals and its under his leadership that that party is collapsing at the expense of the BC Conservatives

This post strikes me as a bit bizarre. Gordon Campbell was floated to run for Parliament as a CPC candidate in 2015, and Christy Clark both endorsed in the 2022 Tory leadership election and was discussed as a candidate for CPC leadership in 2015. Falcon’s ties to the Tories are well known, but I would say Wilkinson is the only leader who was really a federal Liberal.

Christy Clark was a member of the LPC for most of her adult life though, and while she did endorse a Conservative candidate in 2022, it's worth noting that she endorsed Jean Charest, the most Liberal-adjacent candidate in that election. I would be very, very, very surprised if Christy Clark ends up having anything to do with the CPC campaign in 2025.

The case of the BC Liberals seems pretty clear cut. It's not unusual for Liberals to veer right in situations where no challenger exists on the right, but a strong challenger exists on the left. In the 1960s, the Saskatchewan Liberals were effectively the provincial Tories, because the PCs were a non-factor and anti-NDP voters needed somewhere to park their votes. Similar situation for the Quebec Liberals after the fall of Union Nationale and before the rise of CAQ. The leadership class remained largely affiliated with the LPC, but they also understood that there was a much greater demand for a centre-right party than a centrist party.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

That’s all true but it’s not like this is the first time the Conservatives have been riding high in BC federally. The Tories did very well in BC during the time of the 2005, 2009 and 2013 BC elections and the BC Liberals were led at the time by people who were very rightwing but who had strong federal Liberal pedigrees like Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark. Ironically, Kevin Falcon is the first federal Conservative to become leader of the B.C. Liberals and its under his leadership that that party is collapsing at the expense of the BC Conservatives

But yes this isn't the first time the BC Cons have polled high, but surely they haven't polled this high in recent years right? There used to be the odd pre-writ poll that had them in the teens, but polling in the 30s is new and a much bigger threat to BCU.

At the peak of the Cummins insurgency in 2011/12, the best they did was tie with Christy Clark. This is a whole different ball game – even online polls have BCU barely clinging to double digits now. CPBC being closer to the NDP than BCU/Liberals is unprecedented.

Not to mention, CPBC is actually going to run a full slate this time around, or at least close to a full slate. In 2020, they only ran 19 candidates out of a possible 87. This means that although they only got 2% provincially, they averaged around 9% in the ridings where they actually ran, which is closer to how CPBC used to poll in the off-season. Granted, this number is probably skewed by the fact that most of the ridings they contested were very conservative ridings, but still, it's not like they were completely irrelevant, they were decently relevant in the ridings that they contested, and denied the Liberals a few seats.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

I'm still very bearish on the BC Conservatives though, tbh. Despite David Eby getting a lot of bad press for the first time in his premiership (at least in national media, I'm not sure about local media), his favourability ratings remain positive, and John Rustad is nothing impressive. This won't matter much to the base, but I have a hard time seeing how Conservatives flip the suburbs while the left-wing premier remains reasonably popular.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

And what will they name this new party? Because if it doesn't have "Conservative" in the name, then you can expect it won't do as well.

Maybe the BC Liberal Party, to get away from both Conservative and United brands?

Jokes aside, it actually kinda makes sense to go back to being Liberals, if this election turns out the way polls suggest. The alternative is to just try to reclaim the right, which is still not impossible (highly improbable, but not impossible, if let's say BCCP collapses during the writ period). But if the election turns out as polls suggest and BCU is nuked into oblivion, whatever relevance they still have as a right-wing party will be gone. At that point, might as well try to rebuild as a Manitoba-style Liberal Party, which can't conceivably win the election outright but could win seats and maybe even play kingmaker in a future minority situation.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Talk of a merger or non-compete agreement between the BC Conservatives and BC United has collapsed in acrimony and recriminations with Falcon and Rustad accusing each other of lying and negotiating in bad faith. I'm enjoying every minute of it

I don't really have a horse in what happens in BC, but to me it seems like BC United didn't really make this offer in good faith. It basically entailed the Conservatives not running in most of the interior. You know, the part of the province where Conservatives are most likely to win seats. The Conservatives are polling neck-and-neck with the NDP, and BCU are dropping down to Green Party levels. I don't know where Kevin Falcon got the audacity to try and negotiate such a hard bargain, but there's literally zero reason for Rustad to accept such a deal. Effectively all it would do is stall BC Conservatives, let BCU hang on for dear life, and more likely than not give momentum to the NDP.