With just under two months to go until British Columbians vote in the 2024 provincial election, the BC United party, formerly known as the BC Liberals, have dropped out of the race in a move that capitulates to the rising Conservative Party of BC.
The long-term existence of the party, currently led by Kevin Falcon, is unclear.
The party, formerly known as the BC Liberals and a stalwart part of the province for decades, will not be on the election ballot, and its long-term future appears highly uncertain. Falcon, who is currently the MLA of Vancouver-Quilchena, will also not be running.
The BC Conservatives and their party leader, John Rustad, will make a formal announcement at 2:40 pm today.
This follows successive public opinion surveys that have showed BC United trailing far behind the BC Conservatives, with the gap widening steadily over the course of the past year.
One of the most recent surveys, conducted in mid-August 2024 by Mainstreet Research, showed just 12% of decided voters would vote for BC United — considerably behind the BC Conservatives with 39%, which put them ahead of David Eby’s BC NDP for the first time ever in any survey, with the governing party at 36%. BC United’s popularity appears to be comparable to Sonia Furstenau’s BC Greens at 11%.
With BC United dropping out and some of its existing MLAs running as candidates for the BC Conservatives, the latter is expected to significantly increase its lead over the BC NDP.
In recent months, there have been growing calls for Kevin Falcon and BC United to withdraw from the race, with concerns that BC United might split the centre-right and right-wing vote.
Some of the party’s longtime key members and MLAs have already defected to the BC Conservatives in recent months.
As of the time of writing, the BC Conservatives have listed 83 candidates on their website for the October 2024 election, whereas BC United, currently the official opposition party, have just 23 candidates. The BC NDP currently have 64 candidates. There are 93 ridings in the upcoming election, an increase from 87 in 2020, following a recent redrawing of electoral boundaries.
The decision led by Falcon to change the long-established BC Liberals name has been criticized for being one of the key factors that led to the party’s demise.
Falcon was chosen as the new leader by party membership in February 2022, and he subsequently took the MLA seat of Vancouver-Quilchena in a May 2022 by-election. In November 2022, after gauging input from party membership, the BC Liberals announced they would change their name to the BC United, with the name change officially taking effect in April 2023.
Immediately after the name change, BC United’s popularity among voters began a consistent, steep decline, according to surveys conducted since Spring 2023. This suggests many voters may not be aware of the name change.
In more recent weeks, there were reports that BC United were formally seeking a bracketed “BC Liberals” mention next to the BC United name on the ballot, such as “BC United (formerly BC Liberals)”.
Another possible factor in BC United’s decline is the BC Conservatives capitalizing on the rising “blue wave” popularity of the federal Conservative Party of Canada under Pierre Poilievre, with recent surveys indicating that the federal Conservatives could defeat Justin Trudeau’s Liberals by a landslide and form a majority government. Both the federal and BC provincial parties are directly affiliated under the Conservative banner.
The BC Conservatives earned just 1.9% of the vote in the 2020 provincial election, coming in at a distant fourth place behind the BC Greens. While they did not win any seats in the 2020 election, the BC Conservatives now have five seats from MLAs who were previously under the BC United banner, including Rustad, who was kicked out by Falcon in early 2022 for his controversial remarks over climate change.
More to come…