HANNAFORD: BC United folds, probably means the end of BC's NDP government

It would be hard to overestimate the significance of Kevin Falcon’s decision to wind down his BC United Party’s election campaign, and leave the field to John Rustad’s BC Conservatives.With the BC United possibility removed, voters in BC now face a simple choice on October 17: Rustad or four more years of the vastly unpopular socialist David Eby, and his NDP government.One predicts election results seven weeks out at peril to one’s reputation. But after the NDP’s debt rampage, their widely derided ‘Safe Supply’ drug policy, their startling embrace of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, that makes resource exploration more difficult if not completely impossible, and lingering resentments from the COVID-19 era, a BC Conservative government looks like a much safer bet for betting people.Two things, then.First, the demise of the BC United Party actually brings to a close the continuous BC political movement that began in 1937 and flowered in the 1950s as the BC Social Credit Party. Popularly known as the SoCreds, the party governed then for most of the 20th Century with only occasional NDP interruptions, that in all cases served only to remind people why they always voted for any plausible alternative to the financially reckless NDP. The inevitable consequence of tax-and-spend socialists was tax-and-spend budgets, marketed with unrelenting and sickening cant.In due course, as the SoCred name became uncoupled from the realities of its moment and the popular memory, the party morphed into the BC Liberals. Later, with the assistance of Mr. Trudeau, that name too became an electoral liability.BC United was born.And now it’s dead.Second however, it was the same imperative to keep the socialist hordes at bay that today accounts for Mr. Falcon falling on his sword, that in past decades generated the somewhat unprincipled alliances that were the Social Credit governments. Those familiar with BC politics will need no reminder that the Social Credit Party could comfortably accommodate the Solid Seven socially conservative MLAs from the province’s north, with the more libertarian MLAs from the south. Whatever divided them, they were united in the need to make sure that tax-and-spend socialists did not get control of the legislature. (That, of course, was the ‘united’ in BC United.)This then, is both the trigger for the BC Conservative ascendancy and its principal reason to exist.The story is all the more remarkable in that six months ago, while BC United was considered a disappointment, the BC Conservative Party wasn’t considered at all. It was just a handful of disgruntled former United MLAs, written off by the cognoscenti as disgruntled losers. Sadly, it is not so much a story of what Rustad did right, as what BC United did wrong.Much remains to be determined, such as what happens to the financial assets of the BC United Party and how the candidacies will be divided between BC United survivors and their BC Conservative competitors.Initial reports suggest that the stronger BC United candidates will retain their nominations, to run as BC Conservatives. No doubt Falcon will not be the only person ‘taking one for the team.’And that is what he appears to have done.Conservatives are famously fond of their own ideas and in the name of principle, temperamentally inclined to dig in and defend their fox hole. That inclination has put many an NDP or Liberal in a position to do serious harm. The federal Conservative party reckons that votes going to Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party cost them 15 seats in 2021.With what appears to be his selfless action, Kevin Falcon’s personal political suicide removes that likelihood. There are rewards for doing the right thing and in this case, Falcon's choice to surrender his pride and remove himself from the running. .This is what the Western Standard is up againstThe Trudeau government is funding lies and propaganda by directly subsidizing the mainstream media. They do this to entrench the powerful Eastern, woke and corrupt interests that dominate the political, social and economic institutions in Canada. Federal authorities are constantly trying to censor us and stop us from publishing the stories that they don’t want you to read. Ottawa may weaponize our taxes and police against us, but we’ve got a powerful ally on our side.You. Free men, and free women. We need you to stand with us and become a member of the Western Standard. Here’s what you will get for your membership:Unlimited access to all articles from the Western Standard, Alberta Report, West Coast Standard, and Saskatchewan Standard, with no paywall. Our daily newsletter delivered to your inbox. .Access to exclusive Member-only WS events.Keep the West’s leading independent media voice strong and free.If you can, please support us with a monthly or annual membership. It takes just a moment to set up, and you will be making a big impact on keeping one the last independent media outlets in Canada free from Ottawa’s corrupting influence.

HANNAFORD: BC United folds, probably means the end of BC's NDP government

Related Stories