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.
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.
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.
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.