When you head to the polls in October, you’ll likely see one beleagured party attempting to clarify who it is on the ballot.
BC United has faced some challenges since it officially changed its name from the BC Liberal Party last year. And it would appear things haven’t significantly improved.
Recent polling of BCU’s membership found that about 30 per cent of supporters didn’t know BC United was the party’s name now. They either had no idea the party changed its name or they thought the Liberals were now the BC Conservatives.
As such, the party is going to be asked to be referred to as “BC United (formerly the BC Liberal Party)” on the ballot come October.
While the Kevin-Falcon-led BCU hopes the addition will help in the provincial vote, Ian Bushfield, host of the PolitiCoast podcast, isn’t sure how much of a difference it will make.
“That incumbency is not the advantage that it has been for a while. People are looking for a change and differences. So even with the BC Liberal brand, they were struggling in 2017 and they were struggling worse in 2020. I don’t think it would make a difference even if they fully renamed to BC Liberals at this point, because people have moved on and they associate that with the kind of dislike of the politics of 2001 to 2017, and they want to see something different,” he said Tuesday.
“Putting BC Liberal Party might hurt them, even.”
His comments came the same day the latest polling from Research Co. put BC United at fourth place, with just nine per cent support. The BC Greens were ahead in third, while the BC Conservatives were second — only three points behind the BC NDP.
They also came a day after another longstanding BC United party MLA, Teresa Wat, defected to join the BC Conservatives.
“From the start, I thought the rebrand wasn’t necessarily the worst idea because people always did wonder if the BC Liberals were just more of a right-wing party than they were trying to brand as kind of this free market coalition. But they chose a name that didn’t mean anything to anyone and then have failed to really live up to it. If they were the United Party, then you would think that their caucus still be united instead of leading caucus members to the Conservatives,” said Bushfield.
“This request to Elections BC — and we’ll see if they even entertain it — to include ‘formerly the BC Liberal Party’ on the ballot, is just kind of funny and sad. It’s almost just an open public admission that it was all a mistake and if they could go back, they would. But it’s too late for that.”
The then-BC-Liberals voted in November 2022 to change the party’s name to BC United. Falcon said at the time that 80 per cent of the voters who cast a ballot were in favour of the name change.
“For more than 20 years, our party’s name has been a constant topic of debate. A strong vote for BC United marks a new beginning,” Falcon said.
“I’m excited to move forward as BC United because it really reflects our big tent party, united for a common purpose of making life better for British Columbians.”
The party said it consulted with members across the province after a June convention resolution, where the majority of delegates announced their support for a new name. BC United was chosen as the favourite new moniker out of more than 2,000 suggestions, the party added.
The name change was official in April 2023.
The B.C. election is set for Oct. 19, 2024.