BC United Leader Kevin Falcon, in Vancouver, on Aug. 28.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
While British Columbia has long been known for its history of bizarre political moves, the decision on Wednesday by BC United Opposition Leader Kevin Falcon to suspend the party’s election campaign two months ahead of a provincewide vote is worthy of Hall of Fame consideration.
And a heavy dose of scorn and ridicule as well.
Mr. Falcon announced that he was halting the BC United’s campaign and urging all “free-enterprise voters” to move behind the BC Conservative party. The shock this sent through the province’s political scene assuredly paled in comparison to the bewilderment and anger the party’s candidates must have felt when informed of the decision literally just before it was made public.
Some in the conservative movement were praising Mr. Falcon’s decision for its selflessness – for taking one for the right-of-centre team in the province. Oh, yes, such altruism. Kicking all these folks he recruited to carry the party’s banner into October’s election to the curbside with nowhere to go. His gallantry knows no bounds.
I get that BC United was far behind in the polls, certainly far behind their BC Conservative counterparts. And the pressure on Mr. Falcon to not put the conservative vote in harm’s way by splitting it and thereby allowing an NDP candidate to win must have been enormous. I get that. But you don’t pull the plug now.
If you believe in a party that is not extreme, that is fiscally conservative but is socially moderate as BC United billed itself, then you fight for that. Maybe you don’t win the next election but you at least can say that you battled for what you believe in. You can at least say you didn’t capitulate to the backroom forces that were no doubt telling Mr. Falcon he had to do this, that he had to effectively fold the BC United tent two months before the election, otherwise he’d be blamed for allowing the NDP to be re-elected.
But just the day before Mr. Falcon made this monumental decision, he was telling reporters in Victoria what a disaster the Conservatives would be in power. He was mocking the sorry and dangerous crop of candidates they had enlisted for the campaign, some of whom he described as genuine crackpots who believed cellphone towers were “genocidal weapons” and think that “credit cards are a sign of the antichrist.”
We haven’t yet mentioned that John Rustad, the man who has led the BC Conservative revival, was once a member of the BC Liberal party, which became BC United after Mr. Falcon initiated a name change. (This because he felt the Liberal name confused people who might confuse it with the federal party and not the centre-right institution it was in B.C.).
Mr. Falcon, after becoming leader of BC United, kicked Mr. Rustad out of the caucus for retweeting a post on X from a climate denier. And thus began the rebirth of the Conservative brand in B.C., helped along enormously by the surging popularity of the federal party under the leadership of Pierre Poilievre.
Mr. Rustad is the farthest thing away from a charismatic political leader. He’s as dull as beige. There are many in B.C. who couldn’t point him out of a police lineup made up of the cast of Moulin Rouge. And yet here he is, no doubt shocked himself at the recent turn of events. All he had to do was not resemble Mr. Falcon in any way, shape or form.
Which is the other part of this current storyline that is so ridiculous; that Mr. Falcon, of all people, should be considered some sort of hero for his actions.
The failures of BC United are entirely on his shoulders. Entirely. He was a horribly uninspiring leader. He initiated a name change with no viable marketing campaign to make sure the public understood what was going on. He stubbornly clung to the belief that BC United were the natural governing party of the centre-right in the province while ignoring the flashing red lights that indicated otherwise.
He convinced dozens of people to put their faith in him and the party. He promised he would find a way to return BC United to power. He promised he would never abandon the party or its principles. He effectively told his party he would never sell his soul to help a Conservative party and a leader he didn’t think were fit to govern the province.
And they all believed him.
And it’s those people I feel badly for today. Not Mr. Falcon, who is no hero by any definition. What he did will be remembered for years and not in a good way.