Political scientists see the Conservative Party of B.C. in the driver-seat when it comes to challenging the B.C. NDP, but it is not clear whether the provincial Tories will make in-roads in vote-rich urban B.C.
Dennis Pilon, Chair in the Department of Politics at York University, who previously taught at the University of Victoria, said the current split on the right side of the political spectrum is nothing new.
First the Socreds, then the B.C. Liberals, represented coalitions of more socially liberal urban voters and socially conservative rural voters, who found common ground in being pro-enterprise, fiscally conservative and anti-NDP, Pilon said.
Tensions have always defined these coalitions and the provincial Conservatives are currently benefiting from increased polarization and the strength of the federal Conservatives, he added. But this rise is not happening evenly across the province. Polls show the provincial Conservatives behind the NDP in Metro Vancouver and Greater Victoria.
“They (Conservatives) are looking like they are in the pole position to see voters come to them as a party that can beat the NDP, but it is not clear that urban right-wingers will be prepared to sign on to the Conservatives,” Pilon said.
Only the election will tell whether enough former B.C. Liberals in the urban parts of B.C. — many of them federal Liberals — are “prepared to hold their nose and vote for a party with conservative in its name,” Pilon said.
He made these comments following Monday’s defection of high-profile MLA Elenore Sturko to the Conservative Party of B.C. from B.C. United.
Its leader Kevin Falcon had personally recruited Sturko to run in Surrey-South, which she won in the fall of 2022. She has since then emerged as one of the most prolific MLAs on either side of the legislature.
UBC political scientist Stewart Prest considers her departure to the provincial Conservatives under John Rustad a “significant coup” for the party.
Sturko stands apart from her three caucus colleagues in several ways. She is not only a woman representing a fast-growing urban riding in Metro Vancouver, she is also a member of the 2SLGBTQ+ community.
Pilon said it not necessarily unusual for members of that community to be part of parties on the right side of political spectrum, pointing to former B.C. Liberal MLA Lorne Mayencourt.
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Prest said Sturko can “help bolster” the argument of the provincial Conservatives as “more of a big-tent” right-of-centre party.
“I’m sure they (Conservatives) are really hoping that,” Pilon added.
But Prest and Pilon each expressed reservations about how far Sturko’s new party and ultimately voters might buy her turn.
“In this case, to see someone who is a self-described 2SLGBTQ activist joining a conservative party seems bit of a stretch and I can’t help but feel people are going to see it as being pretty opportunistic,” Pilon said.
Prest, meanwhile, raises questions about the Conservatives’ ideological consistency and whom the party actually represents. “Because up until last year, it really was a party that was a welcoming home…for the skeptics of modernity,” he said in pointing to the party’s outside-the-mainstream positions on climate change, vaccines and social inclusion.
“(Those) voices are still there and they have been amplified,” Prest said. “The scrutiny is only going to increase this morning (after Sturko’s defection).”
Rustad has consistently said his party has never been about any ideology and Sturko said Monday that she accepted the apology of Conservative candidate Paul Ratchford, who called her a “woke, lesbian, social justice warrior” on social media.
“Yes, we could talk about Twitter all day, but what we need to do is unite with a party that is resonating with British Columbians,” Sturko said Monday.
Others have been less forgiving. Figures inside and outside of B.C. United have highlighted Sturko’s previous criticisms of her new party. Some have also accused her of betraying the 2SLGBTQ community, a charge she has rejected.
Looking back, it is not unusual for a new centre-of-right party to emerge out of the ashes of another one, Pilon said. W.A.C Bennett, perhaps synoymous with the Socreds, was once a provincial Conservative, he said. B.C. Liberals, for their part, had emerged out of the Socreds.
Notably, B.C.’s first-past-the-post, winner-take-all-electoral system leaves no room for a divided right, something Pilon finds ironic.
“They could adopt a proportional system and then every vote would count. But ‘no, no, no,’ they wanted to keep this system where the votes don’t necessarily match up with the seats,” he said. “This is the dilemma that the two right-of-centre parties have now. They actually don’t want to unite.”
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