BC United has folded its election campaign in support of the BC Conservatives. The October election is going to be tight.
Kevin Falcon, BC United’s leader, after months of accurately criticizing the reactionary and sometimes weird ideas of the Conservatives and their leader John Rustad, suddenly announced his party was supporting them. The decision was his alone — he had not discussed it with the party’s elected members of the legislative assembly (MLAs) or the party’s elected board. This capitulation followed months of the BC United’s polling support plummeting, several MLAs defecting and donations drying up.
Many MLAs were shocked and angry. Several have said they will not accept Falcon’s decision and will run as independents. Not all former BC United votes will go to the Conservatives — some will vote Green or even NDP. In a recent further twist, BC United announced it will run some candidates to keep its name alive.
BC United Rebranding: Historic Political Faceplant
For decades, the right-wing in BC have had different names — Liberal, Conservative, Social Credit, Liberal. At times they split in warring camps, but always, whatever their name, they come together united by their opposition to the NDP (and its forerunner the CCF).
After the BC Liberals lost power in 2017 and their decisive defeat in 2020, the new leader Falcon focussed on a rebrand, hoping to distance the party both from its unpopular past as the governing party for 16 years and the even more unpopular federal Liberals and Justin Trudeau. The party became BC United. It didn’t fly.
Many in BC continued to remember them as BC Liberals, without being presented with any new features. Without new or clear ideas, the party did not generate any energy. They were rightly seen as the same party in a new bottle.
Rustad was kicked out as a BC United member for openly denying climate change. Instead of quietly going away, in 2023 he joined the moribund BC Conservative party (it got 1.9 percent of the votes in the 2020 election) and soon after became its leader.
Rustad has successfully rode the coattails of the energy of the federal conservatives and their leader Poilievre to gather support. Until very recently, few in BC knew who Rustad was or what his policies were. All they knew was the party’s name.
BC Conservatives are Extreme
In April, Falcon refused a merger deal saying, “Many of their candidates are, frankly, too extreme.”
Rustad is an infamous climate change denier. One candidate (later dropped) claimed COVID vaccines cause people to become magnetic. It took Rustad over a year to drop Rachael Weber, who said 5G internet towers cause COVID and were a “genocidal” weapon. Earlier, Rustad stated she had “the tools to be a great MLA and a leader in a Conservative government.”
Conservatives are bullying queer people. Rustad has championed the cause of ending SOGI-123, a program that supports 2SLGBTQIA+ education and inclusion in schools, and recently pushed a “biological sex sports” bill.
They’ve promoted defunding universities. In their quest for an austerity budget, their promises include a “balanced budget,” which means higher charges for public services along with cuts. They promote the privatization of ICBC and health care. They also plan to cut funding for public schools while giving more money to private ones, and censor schoolbooks that deal with issues such as the history of Indigenous people, environmental science and sex education.
Rustad promises to end the lifesaving safe supply of drugs and other harm reduction strategies, to recriminalize drug use, and increase street sweeps of homeless encampments and funding for police.
Rustad has said he will scrap most NDP housing policies, and he has been reported saying in private he would scrap BC’s longstanding and inadequate rent control.
Not only does Rustad deny climate change, he wants to expand the extraction of fossil fuels and build more pipelines. The fossil fuel industry is shedding jobs and fuelling climate change, which causes worse heat waves, floods and fires that kill people, destroy homes and cost the public billions. Fighting forest fires in BC in 2023 cost $1 billion on top of the cost of damaged homes and human suffering. Yet Rustad will step up repression against environmentalists and Indigenous land defenders. Many Indigenous leaders are critical and worried about the Conservatives’ policies.
The Conservatives’ executive director, Angelo Isidorou, was a founding member of the People’s Party of Canada and was public in his “admiration” of Donald Trump — Rustad says he is a “capable individual.”
The BC Conservatives are a danger to the working class and marginalized people.
Big Business Calls the Shots
While Falcon was warning about the Conservatives’ extremism, big business in BC was lobbying behind the scenes for the parties to unite.
The property developers and big construction firms applied pressure on Falcon to step down in favour of Rustad. The corporate bosses claim they are indifferent to the policies of the Conservatives. What matters is profit and they believe they will make more money if the NDP is kicked out.
While election law now does not allow big corporate donations to their political friends, big business still has influence and money to invest in politics.
Why The NDP Could Lose
The election is now very tight. It is not because people became more right wing, but rather are demoralized, with the previous enthusiasm for an NDP government having long withered. Many are no longer willing to vote for a party that failed to deliver significant change and improvements.
The NDP took for granted a right-wing split and assumed they could coast to re-election. They will campaign on being competent managers of capitalism and will fearmonger about the Conservatives. Their election strategy will be to contrast their sensible policies to the extremist policies of the Conservatives, presenting themselves as the party for “all BC.” This was the NDP’s policy in Alberta in last year’s election against Danielle Smith, but Smith won.
Eby has called out Rustad on the Conservative Party’s climate denialism, queerphobia and conspiracy theorist candidates, while warning of Rustad’s ties to the previous unpopular BC Liberal government of 2001-17.
The NDP would have been in a much stronger position if they had used their 7 years in government to tackle the housing crisis in the province. At best, they have piecemeal solutions, namely, small-scale public housing for “middle-income” people, specifically targeted towards teachers, doctors and nurses. But very little for the nearly half of households in BC that earn less than $80,000 a year.
They refused to bring in real control on the units, so landlords continue to have an incentive to evict people and jack up the rent. They have not launched a serious program to build affordable, publicly-owned rental housing.
Instead, on almost every issue they tried to find a halfway house between the needs of workers and the desires of the bosses. They consistently refused to bring in strong rent control because it would upset the developers and big landlords.
They have brought in rules on zoning and permits but that will not provide the needed affordable homes. It will most likely lead to an increase in the construction of unaffordable rental or condo units. Renters are promised that if they are displaced by construction, they will have a right of return, but what do they do in the intervening years?
At the height of COVID, workers and unions wanted 10 days paid sick leave; the bosses wanted none. So, the NDP split the difference, bringing in 5 days, but only after Doug Ford had done the same in Ontario. This was a missed opportunity — if the NDP had agreed to 10 days it would show to all Canadians that the NDP is different and stands up for working people.
NDP Missed Opportunities on Environment
BC’s NDP has boosted the fracking and exporting of LNG, with generous subsidies. This will add to the climate disaster that has already hit BC hard in recent years.
While the NDP has protected some old growth forest, logging continues in unprotected areas. The NDP promised to end the export of raw logs, yet the export of logs and jobs continues. The NDP has given subsidies of $180 million to the forestry sector, yet sawmills are closing across BC. Forest workers and communities are being devastated by private companies moving elsewhere for profits. A publicly-owned BC forest industry that controlled most of the wood from crown land and then manufactured high-quality products would provide stability for workers and communities.
Indigenous peoples are hit hard by climate change and the attacks on their lands. The NDP enshrined Indigenous rights (UNDRIP) into BC’s legislation yet sends the RCMP to attack and arrest against Indigenous land defenders.
The BC courts in 2023 decided that the province’s Mineral Tenure Act, which allows a person to claim land for minerals without consulting the relevant First Nations on the territory, is in conflict with Indigenous rights. This procedure went on for years and is one of many examples of how the government ignores Indigenous rights.
The NDP’s close links to mining are demonstrated by the actions of John Horgan, NDP leader and Premier, following his retirement in 2023.Within days of resigning his seat, he announced he was joining the board of Teck Coal, BC’s largest coal mining company. A few months before this Teck had been fined $16 million by the Ministry of Environment for polluting the Fording River.
Some Modest Labour Gains
Some of the positive changes made by the NDP were in union rights. They now grant union recognition once 55 percent of the workplace signs cards to join. The NDP reversed the contracting out of some health workers’ jobs. Workers in long-term care homes became employees of the province during COVID. This improved their pay and working conditions and sharply reduced the deaths in BC’s homes, compared to the privately-owned long-term care homes in Ontario and Quebec.
BCGEU workers fought the government for cost-of-living adjustments to defend living standards from inflation in 2022. This was seemingly an easy victory for workers and the party — but even this the NDP would not agree to. The lousy contract was ratified with only 53 percent of workers supporting it.
It took a long, hard-fought campaign to get the government to invest a modest $12 million in enforcing employment standards on reluctant employers.
Most union support for the NDP is on the grounds they are better than the other parties, rather than on being inspired.
The NDP’s Road Not Taken
When John Horgan stepped down as Premier in 2022, David Eby was the pick of the party bureaucracy. The planned coronation was upset when Anjali Appadurai, a high-profile NDP member ran for the nomination. She had bold policies on the environment and for workers. Her candidacy was truly energetic, breathing life into the NDP’s base of dormant activists, reviving former members, and attracting new young members.
The NDP bureaucracy panicked at the support she was building. In an undemocratic process, with flimsy reasons, her candidacy was barred. Instead of an energized party, the NDP now risks losing the election to a conspiracy monger.
How the Left can Win and Fight the Right
With just a few weeks until the provincial election, the NDP will have to run on its record — a record of cautious policies, unwilling to challenge big business. Yet the corporations do not support the NDP, they prefer the wacky Conservatives.
The NDP does not campaign outside of elections. The progressive movements that seek their support, find little support. The party’s bureaucracy is not interested in providing support, let alone leadership to these movements.
Unfortunately, given the dissatisfaction with the NDP, many will channel their anger through the Conservatives.
Workers have proven they can organize and struggle in spite of the NDP’s indifference. Workers have waged successful strikes. Social movements build support and put pressure on the party from without. Environmentalists and Indigenous activists have taken bold action against the NDP’s support for fossil fuel expansion.
Socialist Alternative recognizes that the NDP is a better option than the Conservatives. But if the NDP wins another majority they will continue on their present path. Housing will become more expensive, health care will deteriorate, and more people will die from toxic drugs.
A party of working-class people that fights for a change from capitalism is needed, providing socialist solutions to capitalist crises.
Workers and their unions, environmentalists, social justice activists, and Indigenous people need a political party that fights for them and their issues. This party would organize these groups into a united campaign for a socialist change. Democratic discussion of priorities and debates on the party platform and ideas would be held and voted on. The leadership would be democratically elected, and party members would have the right of recall of the leaders and elected representatives. The MLAs would accept the wage of a skilled worker, donating the rest to support campaigns and workers’ struggles.
A real mass party for workers would build grassroots campaigns on the streets and in the workplaces. This would build collective power for change.
