The Conservative Party has not held power in British Columbia since 1933. The party has not been any kind of force at all, in fact, since the 1940s, when it formed coalition governments with the Liberals to keep the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (forerunner of the NDP) out of office. Once W.A.C. Bennett’s Social Credit Party rose to what would prove its long domination in 1952, the Conservatives effectively became a fringe party, hardly ever even running a full slate of candidates in provincial elections.
But the once-fringe party sent a shockwave through B.C. politics last week when it swallowed up BC United, the party that ran the province for the first 16 years of this century under the Liberal banner. Leader Kevin Falcon announced that BC United was shutting down its campaign for the October provincial election and throwing its support behind the Conservative Party of B.C. led by John Rustad. It’s not often that a political party simply gives up less than two months before an election, but it’s not often either that the political landscape changes as dramatically as it has in B.C.
A new wave of conservative populism is surging in Canada’s westernmost province. The Conservatives’ revival began last year, when Rustad crossed the floor of B.C.’s Legislature to become the party’s only elected representative. He’d been ousted from the BC United caucus the year before for questioning the official climate change narrative, then sat as an independent MLA before being acclaimed as Conservative Party leader. The party’s still seemingly modest fortunes soared with a strong second-place finish in the June 2023 byelection in the suburban Victoria riding of Langford-Juan de Fuca; BC United finished fourth.
The Conservatives’ poll numbers continued to rise and last September, BC United MLA Bruce Banman crossed the floor, giving the party official status in the Legislature with two seats. Three more BC United MLAs crossed this year, while a number of nominated BC United candidates also fled to the Conservatives, and by late summer a poll by Mainstreet Research had the Conservatives with a three-point lead over the governing NDP. And just like that, Kevin Falcon’s BC United was finished, and John Rustad’s Conservatives ascendant.
British Columbia is now heading to an election that promises a pure showdown between the NDP’s leftist “progressive” politics, with its massive deficits and freewheeling social policy experimentation, and the Conservatives’ focus on balanced budgets, economic development and upholding law and order. Few thought such a thing was possible just a few months ago. So, how has a rural MLA managed to revive not just a dead political party but also populist conservatism in a province that appeared to have abandoned it?
Modern Canadian Populism
In many ways, the B.C. Conservative leader is a throwback to the days of W.A.C Bennett, when the province’s Socred dynasty was obsessed with balancing budgets and building up a small-town, resource-based economy. Born and raised in the northern B.C. pulp mill town of Prince George, Rustad had a long private-sector career in forestry and in 1995 founded a forestry consulting firm called Western Geographic Information Systems Inc.
Rustad’s political career began modestly enough after being elected as a local school trustee. He entered provincial politics in 2005 as a Liberal under then-premier Gordon Campbell, winning election as the MLA for Nechako Lakes. He would serve in the cabinet of Campbell’s successor, Christy Clark, as minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation, as well as Forestry and Natural Resources, including a stint handling both portfolios at once. When the NDP ousted the Liberals in 2017, Rustad was named Opposition Forestry Critic and eventually co-chaired the 2022 B.C. Liberal leadership campaign of friend and fellow MLA Ellis Ross, a former Haisla Chief Councillor and leading proponent of LNG development in B.C.
Former Minister of Finance Kevin Falcon emerged victorious in that contest, however, and Rustad was eventually ousted from the BC Liberal caucus after a dispute with the new leader over the impact of C02 on climate change, and whether the science on the matter was truly settled. It may have cost him his caucus job, but his willingness to question the climate narrative positioned him as a kind of 21st century populist, appealing to voters mistrustful of elites and more concerned with jobs and economic opportunity. He has also pledged to reverse the NDP’s plan to set aside 30 percent of the province’s land base to protect biodiversity – which would amount to an astounding 315,000 square kilometres, nearly the size of Germany – which Rustad has called “nonsense”.
Rustad’s approach is simultaneously a pragmatic adaptation to modern times and, in some ways, a recognition that the conservative populism of W.A.C. Bennett never really went away.
It’s the same kind of populist conservatism, rooted in economic reform focused on reviving growth and promoting general prosperity, that Pierre Poilievre has championed to great effect at the federal level, bringing in a surge of donations and signups that has reportedly made his Conservatives the largest party by membership and the best-funded federal party. Federal politics is now sharply polarized between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s socially leftist, high-spending Liberal government and Poilievre’s brash populist conservatism. Even before Poilievre’s rise, the stirrings of this national shift had begun in Alberta.
In Alberta, the dominant Progressive Conservatives – a very big tent that had included everything from libertarians and doctrinaire rightists to social conservatives and economic conservatives, plus centrists drawn to the “winning team” – first split apart into two parties. This facilitated an unprecedented NDP victory in 2015, leading to the reorganization of the political right into the more ideological United Conservative Party. Likewise, the old centrism of the B.C. Liberal coalition, which included federal Liberal voters and business-minded conservative and rural British Columbians, is proving no longer viable. The B.C. NDP appear to be absorbing much of the federal Liberal vote in Vancouver that once belonged to the B.C. Liberals.
Rather than trying to revive an exhausted strategy, Rustad’s approach is simultaneously a pragmatic adaptation to modern times and, in some ways, a recognition that the populism of W.A.C. Bennett never really went away. Poilievre’s federal Tories and Rustad’s provincial Conservatives have many similarities, including promises to solve the affordability and addictions crises, as well as improving the economy and restoring fiscal stability. B.C. Conservative Party officials have publicly stated that one of their goals is to appeal to the plurality of British Columbians who voted for the Tories in the last federal election, and Rustad has declared his support for Poilievre multiple times, even though the two similarly-named parties are not officially connected.
But it would be wrong to write off Rustad as simply a Poilievre imitator. The B.C. Conservatives’ pledges to voters are tailored to the unique problems and contexts of their province in 2024.
The Gap Between Vancouver and the Rest of B.C.
If Rustad leads his party to victory in the October election, he’ll be the first premier since Socred Bill Bennett to represent a riding from outside Vancouver or Victoria, with the exception of Christy Clark’s time as the MLA for West Kelowna, a riding she won in a byelection after losing her Vancouver seat in the 2013 provincial election. Should Rustad fall short, he’ll be the first rural MLA to serve as Leader of the Opposition since 1993.
NDP strongholds have shifted from working-class communities into progressive middle-class neighbourhoods. Issues like environmentalism, LGBT rights and drug law liberalization are now signature issues that define the B.C. NDP, largely at the expense of their traditional blue-collar base.
Vancouver’s transformation from the hub of B.C.’s natural resource economy to a centre for international trade and real estate has effectively divorced it from the rest of the province. Prosperity in small-town B.C. has not kept up with Vancouver, while sectors like forestry have shed tens of thousands of jobs since 2001 under both the B.C. Liberals and the NDP.
The de-industrialization of Vancouver has also meant that the NDP’s East Vancouver strongholds have shifted from mostly working-class communities into progressive middle-class neighbourhoods. Their residents work in white-collar jobs alongside their counterparts on the West Side. Issues like environmentalism, LGBT rights and drug law liberalization are now signature issues that define the B.C. NDP, largely at the expense of their traditional blue-collar base.
Much tighter regulations on forestry activities brought in by the NDP since 2017 have caused further job losses and alienation from the party. Once-friendly meetings between NDP politicians and unionized, private-sector forest workers have become frosty affairs. With the B.C. Conservatives hammering the NDP on the issue and promising to loosen regulations so the industry can regain its footing, it’s not surprising that many former NDP supporters or members who distrusted BC United have become enthusiastic supporters of the resurgent party.
Another of Rustad’s longstanding pledges – to axe the provincial carbon tax as a way to reduce the cost of living – also has great resonance in the smaller centres of B.C.’s Interior and up Vancouver Island. In places like Vanderhoof and Campbell River, working often means long drives and pickup trucks, which are essential in the rougher terrain.
Furthermore, the B.C. Conservatives have pledged to expand the province’s LNG industry, which would restore a key element of certainty to an industry that has made halting progress under an NDP government that is under severe pressure to veto any further LNG development. LNG projects, including construction of the liquefaction/loading facilities and connecting gas pipelines, have employed thousands in northern B.C. over the last decade, replacing many lost jobs, as has the expansion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline. Beyond forestry, and oil and natural gas, the Conservatives have pledged to support other industries like fisheries and mining, the latter having been subjected to regulatory uncertainty under the NDP that, the industry fears, will push investment out.
Rustad’s emphasis on unleashing B.C.’s natural resource industries has made formerly safe NDP ridings like North Island, with its large population of blue-collar workers, suddenly competitive with less than two months to go before the October 19 election.
Drugs, Parental Rights and Health Care
After nearly 24 years of Liberal and NDP government, fatalities and disorder from the drug crisis continue to rise in B.C., and growing numbers of addicts have been filling the streets of not just Vancouver but Victoria, Kelowna, Terrace and other cities and towns. Rustad’s Conservatives have eschewed trendy policies in favour of a straightforward plan to end the “safe supply” free drug handouts, put more addicts into voluntary (and if needed, involuntary) treatment, and reopen mental health facilities.
Their program is marked by slogans like “End the Heroin Handouts” and “Defend the Police”. Vancouver has a well-earned reputation as a city that’s very lenient towards recreational drugs, with laws prohibiting the use of marijuana being rarely enforced even before the federal government legalized cannabis in 2018. Advocates for further drug liberalization have discovered the tide of public opinion is turning, however.
Vancouver’s 2022 municipal election was won by Ken Sim of the non-partisan group A Better City (ABC), whose platform included pledges to hire 100 new police officers and 100 mental health nurses to improve public safety following the city’s rise in street crime, often drug-related. The addiction issue featured prominently in mayoral election debates, and the pro-legalization, NDP-backed incumbent Kennedy Stewart then lost in a landslide. Rustad and Sim have not interacted much, apart from Rustad chiding Sim for his big-spending budgets and decision to dissolve the separately elected Vancouver Park Board, but Sim’s success on the public safety issue holds promise for Rustad.
While Sim and ABC are hardly a populist party, their response to the anxieties of Vancouver residents about drug use and urban disorder is not the first time municipal politicians have pushed back against the proliferation of illegal drug use. It harkens back to 1971 when mounted police charged a gathering of hippies and other marijuana aficionados staging a “Smoke-In” in the Gastown neighbourhood. Even in live-and-let-live Vancouver the tolerance of many residents has limits.
Rustad’s promise of a hardline approach has his party set to swipe the two remaining seats in the City of Vancouver that had been held by BC United. (BC United’s nominations will be withdrawn, with candidates free to run for the Conservative Party; the two leaders said they will work together to put forward the strongest slate of candidates, though details of that process were not released.) The Conservatives are also currently favoured to win the riding of Vancouver-Yaletown, which borders the Downtown Eastside. Voters in this part of Vancouver voted strongly for Sim and ABC in 2022. Politicians who promise a muscular approach to addictions have evidently found eager audiences in many Vancouver ridings, signalling an opening for the Conservatives to break through in Greater Vancouver.
The decision of Richmond’s city council to open a “safe” injection site, for example, prompted a massive uproar over public safety from the local Chinese-Canadian community, who comprise about half the Vancouver suburb’s population. The polling aggregator 338 Canada currently favours the B.C. Conservatives to win half or more of Richmond-area ridings in October.
Rustad has also attacked “woke” ideology and identity politics. Parental rights are a hot-button issue in the province, and the Conservatives have pledged to give parents more say in what their kids are exposed to in public schools. For the past year, Conservative MLAs have expressed their revulsion at explicit, almost-pornographic material contained in school library books. Issues over gender identity and political indoctrination in classrooms have become highly controversial across Canada, with many parents insisting that they be informed if their child attempts to change their pronouns or name. Surveys have revealed that large majorities of Canadians agree that parents should not be kept in the dark if those changes occur in public schools. Rustad has called for gender identity and other social issues to be entirely removed from public K-12 education, and stated that bathrooms should be clearly demarcated between girls and boys. In this, he may be going farther than Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s approach to the issue.
Another advantage Rustad has been handed is concern about the growing number of B.C. ‘s hospitals and medical centres that are unable to remain reliably open. In 2023, health centres in the Southern Interior towns of New Denver, Keremeos and Oliver had to temporarily close due to staff shortages. Last month, the South Okanagan, Lillooet and Cariboo Memorial hospitals, also in the Interior, temporarily shuttered their emergency services for the same reason.
Voters are punishing governments that fail to halt the decline in their quality of life, and British Columbia is unlikely to be different.
Rustad’s Conservatives had repeatedly demanded that the B.C. government rescind the Covid-19 vaccine mandate for health-care workers, a leftover policy from the pandemic, which had led to the firings of thousands of experienced health care workers (the exact number remains unknown or secret). After adamantly refusing to do so for over two years, Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry abruptly ended the mandate last month. Her announcement seemed suspiciously timed to benefit the NDP by finally neutralizing this bitter issue, but it is unlikely to save her job if the Conservatives win. Rustad has said he would fire Henry as soon as he is elected both because of the vaccine mandate and because of her doctrinaire support for free hard drug handouts. Health-care closures play into the narrative of provincial decline, serving as another issue that the NDP will have to account for come the October election.
The Next Big Thing?
A final and considerable advantage enjoyed by the B.C. Conservatives is the broad backlash against incumbent governments across the Western world due to economic hardship and affordability challenges. It has crushed the federal Liberal government’s popularity and now threatens B.C.’s NDP incumbents.
Voters are punishing governments that fail to halt the decline in their quality of life, and British Columbia is unlikely to be different. Whether it is affordability or addictions, the NDP have promised much but delivered little if anything in the eyes of many voters. If Rustad’s revival of populist conservatism was intentional, then he has assessed the political landscape astutely. He certainly hasn’t been shy about hammering home the message that he and the party he leads represent a “common sense” approach to what ails B.C., while bluntly calling NDP Premier David Eby a “socialist” (who counters that Rustad is a “threat to democracy”, which has become a kind of current leftist code term to indicate someone is a conservative populist).
For the B.C. Conservatives, victory would mean returning in part to the kind of politics not seen since the days of W.A.C. Bennett. But only in part. A Rustad-led government would also need to reflect the current political climate, the changed nature of society, today’s public mindset and what is still doable in 21st century Canada. The NDP could, of course, still win and take B.C. even farther down the hard-left path. Either way, the days of mushy centrist politics in B.C. look to be in the rear-view mirror, as BC United’s collapse indicates. Populism is back, and perhaps back for good, in Canada’s westernmost province.
Geoff Russ @GeoffRuss3 is a policy analyst and writer in Vancouver. He is a frequent contributor to the National Post and the Hub.
Source of main image: Conservative Party of BC/Facebook.
