Apologies for my absence. Between the newscycle and the change in seasons up north, there has been much to do and digest. I’ll leave comments on our southern cousins’ contest till later, as more shall come to light in the final week of their election. Let’s now turn one last time to British Columbia’s competition, and honestly discuss what an orange wave means for “The Most Beautiful Place on Earth,” as well as our establishment “rightwing” party.
The BC NDP has entered super-majority territory. A large amount of this is thanks to the the BC Liberals so woefully dropping the ball, one might suspect that they were soccer players at a fastpitch game. The “free enterprise party” has always carried a large deficit in principles and small donors; combined with a leader who helps put voters to sleep, while also promising to outspend or “out-woke” the NDP in all things, resulted in a campaign resembling a dumpster fire.
The Dipper boogeyman doesn’t cut it after three years of minority rule where the world did not end. As previously mentioned, it is progressives and environmentalists who have lost the most, as nearly all the same Manchester Liberal economic policies were followed, sold now with soft, social-democratic tones instead of callous limousine liberal sneers. The NDP are even so bold as to promise streamlined development permitting: gentrification is now all good, I suppose.
The oft-promised cheap daycare, more healthcare services, and increased funding for social-welfare as well as poverty reduction might be a welcome shift, at least to some. I cannot foresee how we will pay for any of this, especially if a lack of economic nationalism takes hold in ye old Victoria. What is alarming is how easily the former CCF seems to get along with “cancel culture,” born of both political correctness and the advocacy groups that weaponize it everyday.
I’ve long called for a winnowing of the right-wing wheat in British Columbia. Ever since the SoCreds gave up the ghost - and they were no saints admittedly - what it means to be “on the right” in this province has been elusive. For four elections, the BC Liberals managed to convince everyone “not being the NDP” was good enough. But with the end of corporate donor status, our falsely blue party was proven to be what socialists always called it - a soulless shell.
Where to from here? Well, five minutes after the election is over and Mr. Wilkinson has safely made it back to shore, those on the right will need to parlay for unification between all the factions. A rebranded party with clear principles on everything from freedom of expression to free enterprise will have to be chartered, with most of what's left of the former BC Liberals taken into the fold. Those who will not join will be left to wither on the vine of a defunct political party.
Once the principles are set, the program pretty much writes itself. British Columbians can look forward to taking more sovereignty from Ottawa in resources and pensions; a flat tax; the end of nonessential regulatory or quasi-judicial authorities such as ICBC, BC Human Rights Tribunal, BC Assessment, etc.; more choice in healthcare, including where dollars are spent; a “Made in BC” economic plan with education incentives; and a police force we can call our own.
All that and more. In the end, we owe both the hapless BC Liberals and surging BC NDP a deep debt of gratitude: we could not soon shift our political gestalt without their aid! There is no stopping a true blue flood following the mighty Fraser in four years and all of it is thanks to them.
