In 2001, BC United (named BC Liberals at the time) held 77 of 79 seats in government. In 2017, they fell from power. Today, they are nothing but a rump of losers who hemorrhaged money, support, and influence for the past seven years of a BCNDP government. A haggard Kevin Falcon announced on Aug. 28 his party would suspend its campaign for the Oct. 19 election, without warning its staffers, constituents, or MLAs.
BC United will not be missed. It is the party of two-bit scammers, sleazy salesmen, and criminals. Its time in power from 2001-2017 under Gordon Campbel and Christy Clark was filled with fraud, corruption, deregulation of the housing market, privatization of government assets, handouts to resource companies, and attacks against workers and unions.
A year ago, Falcon attempted to rebrand the BC Liberals as BC United, but this was a complete flop. Their center-right policies enthused no one.
This collapse is not the result of a rise in support for the ruling New Democratic Party, but to the zombie-like awakening of the BC Conservatives, who had zero MLAs and received 1.91 per cent of the vote in the 2020 election. The necromancer behind this monster is John Rustad, who had been kicked out of BC United by Falcon himself last year for climate change denialism.
Rustad saw the stratospheric rise of Pollievre’s Conservatives, and copied their right-wing populist rhetoric. The growing support for Poilievre is now lifting Rustad up with it. The most recent poll showed 44 per cent support for the NDP and 43 per cent for the Cons. Rustad has spent less time saying what he will do, and more time saying he’s opposed to everything the NDP stands for.
But to see an official opposition fold six weeks from election day is a rare occurrence and an extreme humiliation. Who forced Falcon into this?
“The business community made it very clear: We’re going to be going with the Conservatives. And we’d rather not split the vote,” said Norman Stowe, a partner of a PR firm and close associate of Falcon. The capitalists did this by withholding millions of dollars in donations and exerting immense pressure on Falcon. The Independent Contractors and Businesses Association, a 4000-member lobby group for real estate moguls and the construction industry, were even about to come out publicly supporting the Conservatives.
Stowe said this was not over some ideological affinity for Rustad’s Conservatives, but for the simple economic reason a BC without the NDP would be more profitable.
This is bourgeois “democracy” in action. The bosses can decide a party does not suit its interests, and it can be scuttled by its leader without the knowledge of its constituents or MLAs.
Falcon’s letter detailing his party’s demise ended with a call to unite behind the Cons and bring them to power. Yet even with this support, the cohesion of a single party of the right is not easy. As Jason Kenney in Alberta found out in his own United Conservative Party, elements of the right wing can be unpredictable, provoking anger from the workers and even turning on their own leaders. Only a few weeks ago a prospective BC Conservative MLA was kicked out for fueling 5G conspiracy theories, with Falcon saying (before he endorsed them!) that the party is “at risk of becoming a conspiracy party, not a Conservative party.”
Despite its unpolished character, the capitalists have chosen the Conservatives as the party of capital in the province. This is despite the NDP bending over backwards for the bosses. Since former NDP premier John Horgan promised to make life more affordable, homelessness has risen, opioid deaths have shot through the roof, Indigenous rights continue to be trampled on, and mining companies Horgan fought to defend are making record profits. As a reward, Horgan is now on the board of one of the largest coal companies in the world!
While this legalized corruption landed Horgan a cushy job, it did nothing to appease the rabid capitalist dogs. If they want austerity and reaction, they’ll go with the real thing, not the NDP.
Horgan’s replacement, David Eby, is no better. While he talks of wanting to end the housing crisis, he himself is a landlord in his own riding. He and Horgan completely alienated the youth and workers who got them elected by ignoring nearly all of their promises. Where is all the social housing? Where is the genuine help for people suffering from addiction? Where was the cancellation of the TransMountain pipeline? When the Wet’suwet’en were being repressed on their own land, NDP Minister Mike Farnworth personally wrote to the RCMP to violently crush them. The workers who helped them into power have long since burned their party cards.
What the working class needs is a party that presents a clear alternative to the capitalist status quo. The NDP cannot hope to stop the Conservatives in their tracks by trying to please the establishment, and now they can’t win by saying “at least we’re not BC United.” At the end of the day, the vast majority of working people want to defend their eroding living standards and fight austerity. The current lineup of careerist bureaucrats running the NDP (six of whom are not seeking reelection, perhaps seeing the writing on the wall), will not be offering this, so a victory of the Conservatives looks more likely by the day. No matter who wins the Oct. 19 election, the struggle will be fought in the streets, from whatever corner the attacks on the working class come from.
