A few people got together in mid-January and decided it was time to try to resurrect the BC First Party, which appeared to fall off the face of the planet a year-and-a-half ago.
Among them was political pundit Gary Young of Lac la Hache.
He left the meeting as the interim president of the party that he joined a couple of years earlier while it was in its initial stages of becoming a viable alternative to B.C. Liberals and the NDP.
It was interesting to see how quickly BC First built momentum across the province, but in retrospect, it was a matter of the timing being right.
Such is the case with many of the big shifts in how we are governed through the electoral process.
It was during the people’s rebellion against the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) that was shoved down the throats of British Columbians by the BC Liberal Party.
The government was showing its arrogance at the time by telling the electorate it was good for us and it didn’t matter that they lied about bringing the HST to B.C. during the election campaign because the economic situation had really changed three days after they were elected.
Meanwhile, a rather anemic New Democratic Party stated it was shameful the way HST came about, but was never up front about whether it would kill or carry on with the hated tax.
Despite being peeved with the B.C. Liberals, many British Columbians were not going to join the New Democrats because they could trust them to kill the HST.
It was a perfect time for the fledgling BC First Party to gain ground. Then it really took off when Chris Delaney left the BC Conservatives as deputy leader to join BC First.
However, Delaney soon joined Bill Vander Zalm in the Fight HST cause and BC First fell by the wayside.
Now, the party is starting from step 1 again and it is going to be a long, hard haul to become a viable alternative again.
They have few things going against them.
They don’t have a lot of time before the next provincial election, and the BC Conservatives have filled the void when all the BC First leaders went off to war against the HST.
Most importantly, they lost that precious momentum.
It will be interesting to see how Mr. Young and his party grow in the next year.
