BC Conservative win

 

FORSETH: The BC Conservatives’ resurgence that saved British Columbia

BC voters reject David Eby’s NDP in favour of accountability.

Election night was not rewarding for former premier David Eby and the BC NDP, but it was a great night for Lorne Doerkson and the BC Conservatives. The free enterprise coalition held together this time, despite burning through two party leaders since the last election; it won with the third. The Conservatives benefited greatly from the government's dismal record and the resented surprise early election call.

The legacy media will talk about Eby’s blunder rather than voters’ successful rejection of leftie ideology and maladministration. They will write about “what happened and what went wrong” instead of celebrating liberation and accountability.

We recall that, despite the unpredicted electoral rise in 2024, the BC Conservative coalition was tenuous under then-leader John Rustad. He was ousted, and a province-wide party race elected Kerry-Lynne Findlay, who served as leader only from May to September before she was forced to resign. The Conservative MLAs then quickly appointed a new leader from within their ranks who had never sought the job.

MLA Lorne Doerkson, now Premier-elect, was an improbable leader. He is the MLA for Cariboo-Chilcotin and was first elected in 2020 as a BC Liberal. He crossed the floor to be the third MLA to join the rising BC Conservative Party in the spring of 2024 and was elected as a Conservative on October 19, 2024.

Previously, under the BC United banner, Doerkson served as opposition critic for rural development and as the party's deputy whip. Then his defection from BC United came as efforts to reach a possible non-competition deal between the two parties broke down. Observers recall the stunning political move that followed, when Leader Kevin Falcon collapsed the BC United Party's campaign. Supporters had already voted with their wallets, and the Kevin Falcon electoral bid evaporated. Falcon's manoeuvre tried to follow public opinion polls that were strongly coalescing behind the BC Conservatives to replace the NDP. It almost worked in the October 19, 2024, election.

Doerkson was re-elected under the BC Conservative banner and was named assistant deputy speaker. Doerkson took over on September 20 from Leader Findlay, who stepped down after a caucus revolt following just 113 days as leader.

Doerkson was recommended by the MLAs of the Conservative caucus and approved by the party's board of directors. The move followed weeks of speculation that Premier Eby would call an election to exploit discord among the opposition Conservatives.

Doerkson was reached by phone at the Amsterdam airport, where he was on a layover after attending a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association conference in South Africa. The MLAs asked if he would take on the leadership. But Doerkson didn't know until his 12-hour flight landed in Vancouver that he had indeed been confirmed as the Conservative leader. Soon he also learned that he would lead his party in a provincial election.

Eby moved to take advantage. At first, he tried to make the election about opposition to Trump. Then it was about needing a stronger majority in the BC Legislature. Finally, it was just fearmongering about extremism within the Conservative ranks. In desperation, Eby called Doerkson a Trojan horse for extremism. On the last day of the campaign, Eby said British Columbians may think they know what they’re getting with Doerkson, but behind him is a party of extreme candidates.

David Eby's entire campaign had collapsed into pure fearmongering. When he had few achievements to show, he resorted to calling his opponents names. Voters asked who really was extreme. It was the NDP whose decriminalization policy turned public parks into open drug sites and whose DRIPA laws threatened private home titles. Taxpayers didn't fear fiscal responsibility, but they were exhausted by high taxes and record-breaking deficits, while rural emergency rooms and mills closed. Eby had no credible plan to build the economy, lower living costs, cut red tape, and get BC back to work. He forgot that democracy isn't about voting out of fear — it is about holding a failing government accountable for performance.

In contrast, the BC Conservatives presented a modest platform to get out of the way of business to grow the economy while focusing on fiscal responsibility and eliminating the pernicious deficit. The Conservatives were also strong on law-and-order issues, especially on plans to respond to street crime and open drug use.

Secret deals with First Nations, made without political licence and community consultation, also simmered in the background. Each day of the campaign, the Conservative website announced another fix for an NDP policy mistake.

Nevertheless, the NDP's most damaging legacy was economic. They tried to deflect by claiming they didn't have a spending problem but a revenue problem. That was partly true, as revenues suffered because their ideology had shut down the forest sector, and their bureaucratic approach added layers of disincentives for business. They were responsible for killing the economy. However, they also had a reckless spending problem that didn't seem to benefit the average worker. The Eby administration had inherited a fiscal surplus, which it soon turned into a $14 billion deficit.

Local candidates added important nuance to specific local problems the NDP had left unresolved. Yet in the end, it became a personality contest between the activist lawyer and the mild-mannered, middle-aged businessman. Whom do you trust in this time of uncertainty and economic pressure from the United States? Many British Columbians chose the Conservatives and gave them an overwhelming mandate in the 93-seat Legislature. The Conservatives won 64 seats, the NDP won 27, and the Greens held their two seats.