The Conservative Party of B.C. has made a “splash” in its return to the Legislature, said political scientist Gerald Baier — but whether that will be followed by strong numbers come election time remains to be seen.

One thing political watchers seem to agree on is that the rise of the B.C. Conservatives puts current Opposition party B.C. United, formerly the B.C. Liberal Party, on shaky ground.

  • @[email protected]
    9•1 year ago

    Yeah, it’s like the reverse of the national situation where there are two competing conservative parties and the NDP to soak up everyone who can’t stand either of them. Except the BC NDP are currently, if I recall correctly, quite a bit more popular than the CPC is nationally so that bodes even worse for our two other, uh, “contenders.”

    • TSG_Asmodeus (he, him)OPEnglish
      5•1 year ago

      For sure – what will be interesting is to see how it translates federally, because the BC NDP are still a little closer to the (Federal) Liberals and then (Federal) NDP.

      As far as I know the BCPC haven’t hit 40% in ages, have they?

      EDIT: BCPC

      • @[email protected]
        2•1 year ago

        The CPBC hasn’t gotten more than 5% of the vote in the past half century.

        Considering the political placement of LPBC and BCUP pretty much the only shit left for CPBC is the loony bin stuff. They’ve praised brexit, opposed vaccine mandates, hate trans people, and want unrestricted logging.

        The little-c conservative party of BC is the LPBC/BCUP - CPBC are just a bunch of loonies capitalizing on the fame of the national party. They’re essentially our local “American Freedom Party”… they’re hoping to dupe voters.

        • TSG_Asmodeus (he, him)OPEnglish
          2•1 year ago

          I think the question is less what the CPBC will do, but what the.,… what the hell are the BC Liberals called now? (Looks it up…) The question is what the “BC United” (lol) party will do.

          You’ve got a Left party (arguably left on centre in some areas) that is absolutely dominating, getting dangerously (for the Right Wing) close to 50%. You’ve got the CPBC going, as you said, full ‘MAGA’ Canada. So what will the BCU do to get more votes?

          I have a sinking feeling they’ll both try to out ‘Conservative’ each other, leading to an issue like Alberta has where you suddenly have a radically right-wing, owned-by-megacorporations party in charge of an entire province.

          • @[email protected]
            1•1 year ago

            BCUP is mostly just trying not to completely implode after the disaster that was Christy Clarke. They’ll continue to be pretty centrist and extremely neoliberal.

            • TSG_Asmodeus (he, him)OPEnglish
              1•1 year ago

              I don’t think I’d call United ‘centrist.’ Centre-Right, maybe, but in 2020 they sure came out swinging as Cons. Jane Thornthwaite and Laurie Throness alone made them look like (Canada Light) American Republicans.