BC United Leader Kevin Falcon, left, and BC Conservative Leader John Rustad listen during a news conference, in Vancouver, on Aug. 28.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
British Columbia’s once dominant centre-right party has collapsed and its leader has withdrawn the BC United party from the next provincial election to instead endorse the BC Conservatives, a party that hasn’t formed government in the province since 1928.
Kevin Falcon, leader of the formerly named BC Liberal Party, made the announcement Wednesday alongside Conservative Leader John Rustad. Mr. Falcon two years ago ejected Mr. Rustad from his caucus because of Mr. Rustad’s views on climate change. Just this week, Mr. Falcon said Mr. Rustad led a party that was “at risk of becoming a conspiracy party, not a Conservative party.”
But on Wednesday, both leaders said the elimination of BC United was necessary to form a centre-right coalition aimed at defeating the governing BC NDP in the Oct. 19 vote.
“I know that the best thing for the future of our province is to defeat the NDP, but we cannot do that when the centre-right vote is split,” Mr. Falcon said, adding that he would not run in the next election.
BC United struggled to assert itself in the centre-right of B.C.’s political spectrum and has trailed far behind the BC Conservatives in polls. In recent months, BC United bled MLAs to the Conservatives, who have positioned themselves further right on matters such as climate change.
Talks aimed at uniting the two rivals ended earlier this year, with the leaders bickering in the media. Last winter, Mr. Falcon said he couldn’t see “any scenario in which John Rustad would be remotely ready to step into the position of premier.”
But discussions recently resumed, with the pair meeting in person for the first time on this issue for talks on Tuesday night.
Mr. Falcon, a former BC Liberal cabinet minister who retired from politics when Christy Clark won government in 2013 and returned three years ago to win leadership of the party, acknowledged many past donors told him they were withholding their money until the two parties united.
He said he told his BC United candidates in a call before the Wednesday news conference that he’d rather “rip off that Band-Aid now” and preserve a chance of some of his candidates getting elected – even though it may be with the BC Conservatives.
The takeover of BC United by the Conservatives leaves unanswered questions about which candidates will represent ridings in the coming vote as well as what positions the Conservatives will take on issues such as climate change that the two were at odds on.
Mr. Rustad said the nominations of some 50 BC United candidates will be withdrawn as the Conservatives review which ones it would like to run under its banner. Weaker Conservative candidates in the existing pool of more than 80 nominees could be replaced by BC United candidates, he added.
Neither leader said how that process will play out nor when it will be finished.
Mr. Rustad and Mr. Falcon have had years of bad blood and have not been aligned on some key issues.
While the BC Liberals were the first government in North America to enact a broad-based carbon tax, Mr. Rustad has publicly doubted whether climate change is human caused.
Mr. Rustad, a five-term MLA from the Nechako Lakes riding west of Prince George and a former BC Liberal cabinet minister, was ejected from the BC United caucus in 2022 after he shared a tweet by Patrick Moore, director of the CO2 Coalition, that said the case for carbon dioxide being climate’s “control knob” was getting “weaker every day” and included the hashtag “Celebrate CO2.”
In an interview with The Globe and Mail’s editorial board in May, Mr. Rustad said it was “false” that humans burning fossil fuels are the cause of climate change.
“It doesn’t matter how much we try to reduce carbon,” Mr. Rustad claimed, “it is not going to change the weather.”
He went on to deny that climate change is a crisis.
Mr. Rustad did not answer on Wednesday when asked if the new agreement with the BC United meant his views on climate change had changed.
“I have said all along, ‘We’re not changing our principles and the values that we stand for,’” he said. A spokesman for Mr. Rustad said later that the party will unveil its policies on climate change as part of its forthcoming campaign platform.
What both leaders reiterated many times Wednesday: their main concern is defeating the NDP.
Premier David Eby said he remains focused on the work ahead, regardless of who his opponent is.
“We know what John Rustad has planned: deep cuts to the health care system. They’re going to make waits longer and health care worse,” he said in a short video posted to X. “He’s done it before, and he’ll do it again.”
Mr. Rustad also told The Globe his party envisions sweeping changes to schools, housing, climate and reconciliation with First Nations if it’s elected to form government this fall for the first time in nearly a century.
Stewart Prest, a lecturer in political science at the University of British Columbia, described the Conservative takeover as “a signal of an end of an era in B.C. politics, and a real reassertion of the kinds of polarization that we have seen previously in the province’s political scene.”
Dr. Prest said a major question that now arises is what the BC Conservative Party really represents as it works to court those who lean right.
“It is now more than ever trying to unite two dissimilar political traditions: the fiscally conservative but broadly socially progressive, centre-right movement … and what I call the skeptics of modernity: those skeptical of vaccines, or the idea of gender-inclusive education, or the reality of the urgency of the need to do things about climate change,” he said.
BC United leader Kevin Falcon and B.C. Conservative Party leader John Rustad held a press conference in downtown Vancouver to announce end to rivalry, as BC United Party to fold to avoid vote splitting as a means to defeat B.C. NDP in upcoming provincial election in October.
The Canadian Press