The Conservative Party of British Columbia, formerly known as the British Columbia Conservative Party or BC Conservatives, is a provincial political party in British Columbia, Canada. In the early half of the 20th century, the Conservatives competed with the British Columbia Liberal Party for power in the province. However, the party has had only a minor presence in the legislature since the 1950s, and last ran a full slate in 1960.[1] The current party leader is Nechako Lakes MLA John Rustad, who was originally elected as a BC Liberal.[2]
The Conservative Party of British Columbia, known colloquially as the Tories, was formed in 1900 as the Liberal-Conservative Party. The party selected Charles Wilson as its first provincial leader.[3] Several opposition factions contested the 1900 general election against the non-partisan government, but these were generally loose groups.[3] In 1902, the Conservative Party convention passed a resolution to stand candidates in the next election.[3]
Party government was introduced on June 1, 1903, by Premier Richard McBride, when he announced the formation of an officially Conservative government.[3] McBride believed that the system of non-partisan government that the province had until that point was unstable and inhibiting development. His Conservatives won the 1903 election, the first fought on the party system, earning a two-seat majority in the British Columbia Legislative Assembly over their rivals, the Liberal Party, as well as various Socialist and Labour MLAs. The Conservatives generally implemented policies mirroring the priorities of the national Conservative Party, which at the time favoured government intervention to help develop industry and infrastructure.
The Conservatives under McBride and his successor, William John Bowser, held power for thirteen years until they were defeated by the Liberals in the 1916 election. In November 1926 the Liberal-Conservative Party formally changed its name to the Conservative Party.[3]
Tolmie government and crisis
The Tories returned to power in the 1928 election under the leadership of Simon Fraser Tolmie, winning 35 of 48 seats in the Legislature. The Tolmie government was unable to deal with the Great Depression, and was wracked by infighting and indecision. The party was in such disarray that, despite being in power, the Conservative provincial association decided not to run any candidates in the 1933 election. Instead each local association was left to act on its own, endorsing some candidates who ran as Independents, some as Independent Conservatives, and so on. Those supporting Premier Tolmie ran under the 'Unionist' label, while others grouped around former premier William John Bowser and ran as part of the 'Non-Partisan Independent Group'. When Bowser died and the elections in Vancouver Centre and Victoria City were postponed, four Non-partisan and two Unionist candidates withdrew.
The Conservative Party rebounded under Frank Porter Patterson to run a near-full slate in the election of 1937, however they were only able to elect eight MLAS, just one more than the growing Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) caucus. In the election of 1941, the Conservatives were able to win 12 seats, compared to 21 for the Liberals and 14 for the CCF. Members of the province's business community, who feared the growing strength of the democratic socialist CCF, urged the Liberals and Conservatives to form a wartime coalition government to ensure stability. Then-Conservative leader Royal Maitland agreed, while then-Liberal Premier T.D. Pattullo was opposed; however, Pattullo was forced to resign by his own party in late 1941. John Hart replaced him as Liberal leader and premier on the promise to form a coalition, and did so, making Maitland Deputy Premier and Attorney General shortly thereafter.
Coalition years
In 1942, the BC Conservatives were rebranded as the "BC Progressive Conservative Party", following the federal party's lead. Maitland and Hart served throughout the remainder of World War II and continued their partnership past, running a joint ticket in the 1945 election, winning a massive majority government together of 37 out of 48 seats. However, Maitland died suddenly in 1946 and was replaced by Herbert Anscomb, who became Deputy Premier and Finance Minister in the coalition government.[4] When Premier Hart retired in 1947, the Conservatives pushed for Anscomb to succeed him as Premier, but the Liberals, who had more members in the coalition caucus, insisted that the role remain with a Liberal. Byron Johnson was appointed Premier a short time later, but the conflict strained relations between the two parties and leaders going forward, and caused internal divisions to open up within the Tories.
The PCs were riven into three factions: one led by Okanagan MLA W.A.C. Bennett, who called for Liberals and Tories to fuse into a single party, a second faction that supported the status-quo, and a third that wanted Anscomb to simply lead the PCs out of the coalition. Meanwhile, the Liberals were beginning to doubt that they needed the fractious Tories to govern. The coalition was re-elected in the 1949 election, winning 39 seats against nine for the CCF opposition, but despite this, growing divisions within the Conservative Party resulted in Anscomb's leadership being challenged at the 1950 party convention. W.A.C. Bennett, who had moved over to the anti-coalition faction, quit the party and crossed the floor to sit as a Social Credit League of British Columbia member, and eventually formed the British Columbia Social Credit Party.[4]
In January 1952, the Liberals decided to dissolve the coalition, with Johnson summarily dismissing his PC ministers, including Anscomb,[5] and continued forward as a minority government. The Conservatives properly refounded their party and went into the 1952 election with the goal of unseating Premier Johnson.
Decline
Prior to the 1952 election, the coalition government, whose entire reason for being had been to keep the CCF out of power, introduced an instant-runoff voting system. The idea behind the change was an assumption that the business-oriented majority of BC voters would keep the democratic socialist party out of power through their secondary choices, regardless of the newly formed split between former coalition partner.
However, none of the three parties expected the result of the election. The Social Credit League, led by AlbertanErnest George Hansell, won the most seats, while the two former coalition partners fell far behind. The PCs won only 4 seats total, not including Anscomb's Oak Bay constituency. Two months later, former Tory W.A.C. Bennett would take control of the SoCreds, dropping the party's social creditmonetary reform policy in favour of traditional and populist conservative platforms.
It was clear to those who wanted to keep the CCF out of power that only the SoCreds would be able to accomplish that task, and so business-oriented voters left the old parties behind. Having a majority government following 1953, the Social Credit government changed the electoral system back to first past the post in order to cement its base. Social Credit became, in effect, the new centre-right coalition party, and both the Liberals and the Tories became marginalized.
Wilderness years
Between the 1956 and 1972 elections, the Tories won no seats to the Legislature, and slowly the party began to dwindle downward. Deane Finlayson served as leader from 1952 until 1961, eventually handing the reigns to federal Member of ParliamentDavie Fulton. Fulton led the party to a brief surge of relevance in the 1963 election, winning 11% support, but no seats, with even Fulton falling far behind his SoCred opponent in the Kamloops constituency. Fulton left soon after, returning to federal politics while the BC Tories collapsed into ruin.
The Party ran only 3 candidates in 1966, and just one, then-party leader John de Wolf in 1969. It was not until 1971, following de Wolf's ouster as leader by Derrill Thomas Warren, that some hope returned.
In 1971, former SoCred MLA Scott Wallace, who represented Oak Bay, crossed the floor to join the PCs, becoming its first MLA in 15 years. The attention translated into nearly 13% of the vote in the 1972 election and two seats – Wallace's and Hugh Curtis in Saanich and the Islands, both in the Victoria area. Warren was unable to win his own seat. The election was won by the CCF's successor party, the New Democrats (or NDP), who took advantage of the split between the SoCreds, Tories, and resurgent Liberals to form a majority government.
This glimpse at relevance did not last long, however. Wallace was elected leader of the party in 1973, but in the same year his caucus mate Curtis left to join the Social Credit caucus, answering a call by new leader Bill Bennett to reunite the 'pro-business' vote. Wallace was able to win his own seat in the 1975 election, but resigned in 1977 and returned to his medical practice shortly after.
During this time, with most of their voters in BC supporting Social Credit, the federal Progressive Conservative Party kept its distance in order to avoid alienating Social Credit Party supporters. When the federal and provincial election campaigns overlapped in 1979, federal leader Joe Clark made obvious efforts to avoid any contact with Vic Stephens, leader of the provincial PCs.[6]
Wallace's successor in Oak Bay and the party leadership was the last Tory MLA to be elected. Vic Stephens won the seat in a 1978 by-election, but lost in the following year's general election campaign.
BC Conservative Party logo, 1991 to 2005
The Tories returned to the wilderness in the following years, despite the amazing growth of the federal party during the 1980s. For a brief stint in 1986, former NDP MLA Graham Lea crossed the floor to sit as a PC MLA, but quit politics altogether following the dissolution of the Legislature for the 1986 election.
In 1991, the party changed its name back to the "BC Conservative Party", but was unable to gain traction during the collapse of the SoCred government in the 1991 election and the subsequent re-alignment of BC politics. The party ran only a handful of candidates between 1991 and 2005, as the pro-business voters of the province moved en masse to the BC Liberals.
Recent history
Revival efforts
BC Conservative Party logo, 2005 to 2012
In 2005, former BC Reform Party and Christian Heritage Party leader Wilf Hanni was elected leader of the Conservatives. The party was able to field 24 candidates for the 2009 election, its highest number since 1979, and earned 2.1% of the vote province-wide. The re-emergence of the party, despite not coming close to winning any seats, sparked renewed interest in the Conservatives, who began to poll between 5–10% in polls.
At the end of 2010, the party had the support of 8% of votes according to opinion polls, had approximately 2,000 members, up from 300 in June of that year, and had constituency associations established in 45 of the province's 85 ridings.[12]
Several months after the election of Christy Clark as leader of the Liberal Party, and her subsequent swearing in as Premier, the Conservatives' support rose again at the expense of the Liberals.[13][14] According to Kevin Falcon, runner-up in the Liberal leadership convention, "a number of my supporters that may have done that and I'm not entirely surprised."[15]
The party held a leadership convention on May 28, 2011, and former Conservative Party of Canada Member of Parliament John Cummins was proclaimed leader.[16][17] After dropping into single digits after Liberal premier Gordon Campbell's resignation in March 2011, the Conservatives consistently polled above 10 per cent in the last half of 2011, reaching as high as 23 per cent.[18]
On March 26, 2012, Abbotsford South MLA John van Dongen announced that he was leaving the BC Liberals to join the BC Conservatives,[19] providing the party with its first representative in the Legislative Assembly since 1986. In September 2012, John van Dongen switched to independent status after the re-election of John Cummins as leader of the BC Conservative Party.[20][21]
In the run-up to the 2013 election, Cummins had repeatedly stated his hope to run a full slate of candidates, but the party was only able to field 56 candidates out of a total possible 85. Nevertheless, with high polling and the capability to form a major caucus within the Legislature if elected, Cummins was invited to join the leaders of the Liberals, NDP, and Greens on-stage for the provincial debates.[22]
Despite high hopes, the Conservatives received only 4.76% of the vote and were unable to elect a MLA during the election. The party's strongest result was in Peace River South, where their candidate Kurt Peats came in second place with 27.2% of the vote; all other candidates came in third place or worse. Cummins, previously a federal MP in the area for nearly two decades, was only able to earn 11.9% support in the Langley constituency.
2013–2022
Conservative Party of British Columbia logo from 2015 to 2020Conservative Party of British Columbia logo from 2020 to 2022
On July 18, 2013, John Cummins resigned from the position of party leader.[23] Dan Brooks was elected the new leader of the party on April 12, 2014, then resigned at the party's Annual General Meeting on February 20, 2016.[24] Brooks was re-elected as leader at a leadership convention held on September 17, 2016.[25] However, on October 28, 2016, the party's executive board removed him from the leadership after ruling that the meeting that approved his candidacy for the leadership convention lacked quorum.[26][27]
The party was not able to select a new leader before the start of the 2017 election campaign. After nominating 56 candidates in 2013 and earning almost five per cent of the vote, the Conservatives entered the campaign for the 2017 provincial election without a leader. It nominated ten candidates, none of whom was elected.[28] Even without a leader, the party still managed an average of more than a thousand votes per riding contested, with no candidate receiving less than two per cent of the vote. Leah Catherine McCulloch received the highest vote share of all the Conservative candidates, at 7.55 per cent in the riding of Courtenay-Comox.
In September 2017, following the party's AGM, Scott Anderson, a Vernon city councillor, was appointed interim leader by a unanimous vote of the newly elected board. Anderson oversaw the reformation of several defunct riding associations and an increase in membership, and took the party through the Kelowna West and Nanaimo by-elections.
During the BC Liberal leadership race in 2022, conservative commentator Aaron Gunn entered the race, hoping to represent the party's right-wing. However, the BC Liberal Party disqualified Gunn, describing his views as "inconsistent" with the party's values.[31]
Following his disqualification, Gunn founded Common Sense BC, an advocacy group that would study the viability of a right-wing alternative to the BC Liberals. Gunn's group endorsed a slate of candidates who stood for election to the Conservative board at the party's May 2022 AGM, launching a takeover of the party. The endorsed candidates were elected, and young right-wing advocates took control of the party.[32]
In August 2022, the party revealed a new logo, alongside a new website and platform.
On February 16, 2023, John Rustad, MLA for Nechako Lakes, joined the Conservative Party, giving the party representation in the Legislature. Rustad was elected as a Liberal but was removed from party caucus in August 2022, after he refused to undo his retweet of a comment casting doubt that climate change is caused by carbon dioxide emissions. Rustad cited "irreconcilable differences" with Liberal leader Kevin Falcon in explaining his party change.[33]
Bolin announced on March 3, 2023, that he was stepping down as party leader, and a party leadership race would be held in the near future.[34][35] A few weeks later, Rustad announced that he was running to be the party's leader.[36] On March 31, 2023, Rustad was acclaimed as the new leader as the only candidate in the race.[37]
In the 2023 Vancouver-Mount Pleasant and Langford-Juan de Fuca by-elections, the Conservative candidates placed fourth and second, with 4.88% and 19.86% of the vote, respectively. In Langford-Juan de Fuca, the Conservatives unexpectedly overtook the centre-right BC United (formerly the BC Liberal Party), which typically took second place in the riding.[38]
On September 13, 2023, BC United MLA Bruce Banmancrossed the floor to join the Conservatives.[39][40] This gave the Conservatives the two MLAs necessary for official party status, and Banman became the party's house leader.[41] The Legislative Assembly Management Committee will determine whether the Conservative caucus is eligible for funding and resources equivalent to those of the Green caucus, who also have two MLAs.[42]
In the leadup to the 2024 election, both BC United and the BC Conservatives have been polling at similar levels and appear to be competing for overlapping demographics of voters.[43][44]
Ideology and political positions
In 2017, under the previous leadership, party communications director John Twigg compared his party's populist and anti-establishment rhetoric with that of the Brexit movement and supporters of Donald Trump's presidency.[45] Under the Rustad leadership, the party has attempted to portray itself as more mainstream and "common sense" in order to appeal to more voters; in 2023 and 2024 Rustad has described his party as a "centre-right alternative" to BC United, the BC NDP, and the BC Greens and focused his rhetoric on lowering taxes.[39][46][47]
Economic issues
The party advocates for increased resource extraction with few environmental roadblocks, and calls to further develop the province's fossil fuel and lumber industries. In particular, it opposes the provincial carbon tax and proposes that environmental activists and their supporters be arrested for "illegal activities".[48][38][49]
Social issues
The party opposes vaccine mandates for health care workers, BC's Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) education policies, and safe injection sites for drug users.[50][51][52] Regarding the latter, the party proposes that drug abusers be involuntarily committed to drug rehabilitation centers.[49] Rustad has often clashed on social issues with BC Premier David Eby in the legislature; Rustad has accused Eby being an authoritarian socialist in 2023, while in 2024 Eby accused the Conservatives of embodying the worst traits of American populism.[38][53]
In the leadup to the 2024 election, the party dropped some candidates for their spreading of misinformation on vaccination and medical issues, including Stephen Malthouse and Jan Webb.[54][55]
^After the election, a coalition government was formed by the Conservative and Liberal members. T. D. Patullo, Liberal leader, objected, stepped down, and sat as a Liberal, giving the Coalition 32 seats.
^ abIn the 1945 and 1949 elections, the Liberal Party ran in coalition with the Conservative Party. Results compared to Liberal and Conservative total from previous election.
^ abThe 1952 and 1953 elections used the alternative voting system. Rather than marking the ballot with an X, numbers were to be placed opposite the names in order of choice. If, after the first count, no candidate received an absolute simple majority, the candidate with the fewest votes was dropped, and the second choices distributed among the remaining candidates. This process continued until a candidate emerged with the requisite majority vote. Some voters only indicated a first choice (plumping), and others did not utilize the full range available. Consequently, as the counts progressed, some ballots would be exhausted and total valid votes would decline, thereby reducing the absolute majority required to be elected. In multi-member ridings, there were as many ballots as members to be elected, distinguished by colour and letters.
^Morley, J. Terence; Ruff, Norman J.; Swanson, Neil A.; Wilson, R. Jeremy; and Young, Walter D., The Reins of Power: Governing British Columbia, p. 92, Douglas & McIntyre, Vancouver, 1983
