British Columbia shaken by messy election campaign putting progressive policies at risk

Canada ’s westernmost province has been gripped by a chaotic provincial election campaign, rife with political backstabbing, abrupt resignations and unexpected allegiances.

And as an unpopular premier squares off against a climate crisis skeptic, the October vote could have profound consequences for British Columbia, a province seen as the vanguard for progressive climate policy.

Until recently, voters were split between the governing New Democratic party (NDP, a left-leaning party in power since 2017) and the insurgent British Columbia Conservative, or BC United, a rebranded incarnation of a party that has long dominated the province’s politics.

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But the campaign has descended into chaos after BC United leader Kevin Falcon announced he would withdraw his party from the election, over fears it could split the rightwing vote with the separate Conservative party of British Columbia.

The move, which shocked both candidates and party insiders, was a grim admission that attempts to remake the party had failed – and signaled a dramatic reshaping of the province’s political landscape.

BC United was for decades known as the BC Liberal party, a centre-right faction that governed from 2001 to 2017 and, in one election, crushed the opposition by winning 76 of 79 seats in the legislature. But in 2023, Liberals voted to rename the party, a goal championed by Falcon in his leadership bid.

The party spent C$1m on a rebranding campaign, but recent internal polling found about 30% of party members weren’t familiar with the new name, according to the CBC. In late July, the party even asked electoral authorities for its old name to be included in brackets on the ballot for the October provincial election.

“In decommissioning the BC Liberal brand, [Falcon] basically killed what had once been the natural governing party of British Columbia politics,” said Shachi Kurl, executive director of the Angus Reid Institute, a non-profit public opinion research organization.

And so on 28 August, a solemn Falcon announced he was suspending his party’s campaign and endorsed the BC Conservative leader, John Rustad, for premier – a man he had only accused days earlier of running a party “at risk of becoming a conspiracy party, not a Conservative party”.

Rustad, a former BC Liberal, was booted from the party by Falcon over controversial social media posts about the climate crisis

Rustad then took the helm of the ailing Conservatives, a party that rivals suggested was “downright weird” for the conspiracy theories peddled by members, including that 5G wireless technology was a cause of the coronavirus pandemic.

Although they have no relation with the federal Conservative party, Rustad’s BC Conservatives have nonetheless harnessed an anti-incumbent sentiment, swept up by broader support for so-called “common sense” policies from the federal Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre.

Rustad has also courted unlikely alliances in his long-shot bid to take the province’s top job. In early July, former Green party leader Andrew Weaver, a climate scientist, praised Rustad as a “listener”, arguing that the current premier, David Eby, “surround[s] himself with people who will help him control government through his office … and that is not healthy for democracy”.

Weaver, lead author for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that won a Nobel prize, said he didn’t agree with Rustad on climate, but the two shared a view that the rhetoric around the climate crisis was “alarmist”.

Eby called the comments “very bizarre” given Weaver’s expertise.

“I would have assumed, given his life’s work, that Dr Weaver would have no difficulty making a decision about which side to choose, but that’s really up to him,” Eby said.

Kurl says recent polling from the Angus Reid Institute shows the Conservatives tied with the NDP in the polls.

In the days since Falcon’s surprise resignation, the Conservatives have moved quickly to absorb what they see as the top BC United candidates that they can run under their own party banner.

Despite the tumultuous nature of the campaign, advocacy groups fear a Conservative victory would undo years of work to safeguard biodiversity and Indigenous rights.

Torrance Coste, a campaigner at the environmental advocacy group Wilderness Committee, says that while decades of “milquetoast, incrementalist, half-measure” climate policies have produced few results, recent landmark policies are risk.

Rustad called recent legislation that would initiate co-management of public lands with BC’s 204 First Nations “an assault on your private property rights and our shared rights to use crown land” and pledged to repeal plans to protect 30% of the province’s land and water by 2030.

“Losing either would be a huge blow to efforts to fight climate change and biodiversity loss and shift authority and jurisdiction to Indigenous titleholders,” said Coste. “[We] vehemently oppose any proposals to weaken or remove either commitment.”

British Columbia’s election will be held on 19 October.