“Perceptions” by Gerry Warner

Op-Ed Commentary

Someone once said, “politics is the art of the possible.” Surely after the past week, it must be obvious that nothing is impossible in B.C. politics.

Where else in this wild world have you heard of the major opposition party announcing it was withdrawing from the election less than two months before voting day? It wasn’t a trick or a ploy. It was true.

After spending a night with his cronies in a proverbial smoke-filled room somewhere in Beautiful BC, BC United Party leader Kevin Falcon announced he and his weak-kneed party were pulling out of the race. If there was a fly on the wall in that smoky room, I imagine he might have heard a conversation something like this: “I’m out of here folks but don’t complain. You can all run as Conservatives, Independents, or Greens. Or you can just pack up your briefcases and quit.”

Two long-time BC United Party members promptly did. And there will probably be more. Possibly even including our own Kootenay-Rockies MLA Tom Shypitka who deserves better treatment than this. For that matter, all former BC United Party members deserve better treatment than this instead of being thrown down the garbage chute lik  a stale salad while Falcon makes his cowardly escape

Sorry if I’m making you sick, but this is awfully sickening behavior. Even politicians deserve some respect. And in suggesting that former BC United members could jump to John Rustad’s BC Conservative Party, Falcon is asking them to get in bed with a party led by a man who’s on the record for denying climate change, which puts him off-side with most voters in B.C. as they grimly watch forest fires burning down the province all around us.

Rustad, a former BC Liberal MLA, was kicked out of the party in 2022 after tweeting a statement casting doubt on climate change. However, after jumping to the then almost invisible BC Conservative Party, the Nechako Lakes MLA has been on a political roll expanding the BC conservatives to a five-member party mostly at the expense of the former BC United Party leading to the collapse of that party last week.

So, whither goes B.C. politics now?

I would venture that not even the Oracle of Delphi would answer that question. While many British Columbians hold conservative views, especially in rural B.C., the party has never come close to holding power in B.C. and was truly little more than a political joke. But nobody is laughing now as the Conservatives currently hold five legislative seats and will probably accumulate more as the dust settles after last week’s explosive events.

But will the party grow enough to overcome the current BC NDP government?  Not in your lifetime or in mine or as poet G.K. Chesterton more eloquently said in The Donkey: “When fishes flew and forests walked and figs grew upon thorn.” I’m well aware making predictions like this is dangerous. But I’m not losing any sleep.

Nevertheless, BC NDP leader David Eby appears to be quaking in his boots at the prospect of how the Conservatives will perform in the provincial election Oct. 19. The NDP leader has doubled down on the Conservatives the past several months accusing Rustad, among other things, of being “a climate denier leading a band of conspiracy theorists.”

It appears that Eby has a crystal ball of his own that anticipated the collapse of BC United in the election. But the collapse occurring mere weeks before election day must have surprised even him.

But Eby should take another look in his crystal ball and see what his cozying up to big labour and the voracious forest corporations cutting the last Old Growth in B.C. might do to his party’s economic future. We’ve already witnessed one political party collapse in B.C. In the future, we may see another.

– Gerry Warner is a retired journalist, who freely admits his love of the forest.

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