With just over five months from the start of the next provincial election, are we at a point where BC’s political landscape is about to be reshaped?
The BC Liberals won the popular vote six times in a row from 1996 to 2017 but that brand has been discarded. Its successor brand, BC United, has fragmented with two MLAs defecting to the upstart BC Conservatives, and many of its voters parked there too – the amount differs depending on which poll you’re looking at. Regardless of the exact numbers, it is crystal clear that there is a vote split. Electoral coalitions are tough to maintain, but the math is grim when they fall apart. To paraphrase Ben Franklin, it’s ultimately a question of “hanging together or hanging separately”.
What does history tell us?
The re-formulation of BC’s ‘free enterprise coalition’ – or as one astute political observer calls it the “Not NDP” coalition – has followed ‘big bang’ political events on four occasions over the past 83 years. Once a big bang happens, the voters are presented a revised option to challenge the dominant left-wing option, originally the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and, after 1961, the BC NDP.
The big bangs have taken place in a variety of ways – a deal between parties (1941), the voters choosing a surprising new direction (1952 and 1991), and coalition by migration when MLAs and partisans from weaker parties moved over to support the stronger party in order to remove a vote split (1975).
Let’s Make a Deal
In 1941, fresh after a disappointing election campaign where his majority government was reduced to a minority, Liberal Premier Duff Pattullo, who had led BC since 1933, wanted to carry on as usual. Concerned by the increasing strength of the left-wing Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), Pattullo’s cabinet and caucus colleagues wanted to join forces with the Conservatives and form a wartime coalition government. Pattullo dug in. Frustrated, Liberal cabinet ministers resigned, including Finance Minister John Hart. On December 2nd, 1941, at a special convention of almost 800 Liberal members held at the Aztec Room in the Hotel Georgia, both sides of the argument were heard over the course of a four-hour debate with those favouring coalition prevailing over Pattullo’s point of view, by a vote of 477-312. Pattullo resigned as party leader and declared, “You have given your verdict, which I accept. But you must remember you are now no longer Liberals – you are coalitionists.” He stepped down from the platform, waving to the crowd, saying, “Good-bye, boys and girls” and walked into the night. (see Robin Fisher’s, Duff Pattullo of British Columbia). John Hart was elected immediately by the Liberal rank and file to lead the party, and, within the week, was installed as the Coalition premier. Conservatives were brought into cabinet, with party leader, Pat Maitland, becoming Attorney-General. In the subsequent election, Liberals and Conservatives held joint nomination meetings where an equal number of members from each party were eligible to choose an agreed-upon coalition candidate at the riding level.
The Voters Choose a New Direction
In 1952, voters were tiring of the coalition parties. In fact, Liberals and Conservatives were tiring of each other. After two consecutive majority wins in 1945 and 1949, the coalition parties decided to resume hostilities and run their own candidates, with one key wrinkle – they hatched a plan intended to thwart the CCF by bringing forward a single transferable ballot where voters marked their first, second, and third choices. The thinking was that Liberal and Conservatives would gang up by being each other’s second choice thus denying the CCF a chance to otherwise win under the traditional ‘first past the post’ system. What they did not envision was the Social Credit Party, which governed Alberta but heretofore a non-factor in BC, becoming a plausible option for many voters. The Socreds trailed the CCF after the first count of ballots by a margin of 7 seats, but when second and third choices were counted, they edged ahead of the CCF, with 19 of 52 seats in the Legislature (the CCF had 18). The Socreds, who were actually led by an Albertan during the campaign, did not have an elected leader until after the campaign when W.A.C. Bennett (a former Conservative MLA who went Socred before the election) was chosen by the newbie caucus. W.A.C. then had to twist the arm of the Lieutenant-Governor to be invited to form a government. It worked out – he governed for 20 years on the strength of seven consecutive election wins, and shrewdly did away with the single transferable system after 1953.
In 1991, the voters would take matters into their own hands again and shake up the political landscape. They had had enough of the Social Credit Party, reducing the dynasty that had governed for 36 of the 39 previous years to only seven seats in the 69-seat Legislature. The BC Liberals literally rose from the ashes under leader Gordon Wilson to jump from zero to 17 seats and claim the Official Opposition, while the NDP steered its way to a majority government under Premier Mike Harcourt. The Liberals would metamorphosize in the years that followed. Wilson lost his grip on the leadership leading to a convention where the three Gordons faced off – Wilson, former leader Gordon Gibson, and Vancouver mayor Gordon Campbell. Campbell prevailed and set forth to rebuild the BC Liberals – then mainly a ‘liberal’ party – by attracting new blood, including ex-Socreds, Progressive Conservatives, and federal Reformers. It would take a decade. A close loss in 1996 (due to a vote split with remnants of the Socreds under the banner of Reform BC) was followed by an electoral landslide in 2001 when Campbell’s BC Liberals won 77 of 79 seats. The BC Liberal new era in government would run for 16 years to 2017 when a razor thin, combined NDP-Green majority ousted them in a confidence vote. John Horgan was propelled into power on the strength of a 189 vote NDP win over the BC Liberals in Courtenay-Comox, where the BC Conservative candidate had a coalition-killing 2,200 votes.
Coalition by migration
In 1972, the NDP, led by Dave Barrett, formed government for the first time, aided greatly by the rise of the BC Conservative Party which went from about zero to over 12% of the vote, creating a deadly vote split. In a Kelowna by-election to fill W.A.C. Bennett’s seat in 1973, the leader of the Conservatives, Derrill Warren, faced W.A.C’s son, Bill Bennett, the Socred candidate. Bennett the younger prevailed, dispensing with the Conservatives, soon became leader of his party, and ultimately attracted three Liberal MLAs (including former leader Pat McGeer) and one Conservative MLA to cross to him. The four floor crossers would become senior cabinet ministers after the election. Other key partisans, like former BC Liberal leadership candidate Bill Vander Zalm, jumped to Bill Bennett’s side. It wasn’t just as simple as that, though – the floor crossings followed months and months of public discussions of a ‘Unity Party’ by various opposition MLAs and advocacy by a third-party group – the Majority Movement – that pushed for a united front (Professor Gerry Kristiansen writes a great summary of events in BC Studies). Ultimately, the consolidation of seats under the Socreds sent the political ‘bat signal’ to free enterprise voters that the Social Credit banner had been rejuvenated, and they won the 1975 election decisively, and went on to govern for another 16 years. The Liberal and Conservative vote collapsed. The NDP vote was virtually unchanged in 1975 but they couldn’t defeat a unified opposition.
After the 1996 election when the BC Liberals won the popular vote but lost the election primarily due to a vote split with BC Reform, ‘Coalition by Migration‘ was effected to solidify support as Reform MLA Richard Neufeld crossed the floor to the BC Liberals (later to serve in cabinet) along with a past party president, and many grassroots members. BC Reformers were effectively wooed by the BC Liberals and room was made in the coalition tent for them. This process was repeated again in 2011-2013 era as Christy Clark moved to shore up the BC Liberal coalition by bringing key federal Conservative leaders onside to head off a BC Conservative comeback, convening ‘Free Enterprise Friday’ at its party convention, and notably recruiting former BC Conservative by-election candidate John Martin to run as a BC Liberal in the 2013 general election.
Fast forward to 2024.
We’re due for a Big Bang, whether that’s before or after the October election.
Will the parties hold their ground and have the voters choose their destiny for them? Will one of the opposition parties conclusively pull away from the other and turn the election into a two-way race or will they hold each other back and pick up the pieces afterward? As the 1991 example showed, it took a decade for a ‘free enterprise’ alternative to return to power – winning seats is one thing, but, depending on the scenario, the learning curve of brand new MLAs with no legislative experience is quite another. Just because a new option prevails doesn’t mean it’s going to govern anytime soon. It must still have the ability to appeal to more than 40% of the electorate, which is what successful coalitions have been able to do by attracting a broad spectrum of voters.
Alternatively, will the action take place pre-election, whether that’s a brokered deal that includes joint nomination meetings and agreed-upon candidates, similar to 1941 scenario, or party insiders stampeding one way or another as was the case in 1975? And how would the voters react to that? Would they be turned off by backroom maneuvers or energized that there may be a real horse race?
We’ll see. As Mark Twain said, “History never repeats itself but it often rhymes.”
Catch up with Mike McDonald, Kate Hammer, and Geoff Meggs weekly on Hotel Pacifico, your Five Star podcast designation for B.C. politicos.
Air Quotes Media, a political media company that created Curse of Politics and The Herle Burly podcasts, is proud to announce its newest podcast, “Hotel Pacifico” hosted by Mike McDonald, Kate Hammer, with Geoff Meggs as a contributing panellist.
Hotel Pacifico will be a weekly hour-long podcast with three reoccurring segments on each episode: first, the pod will begin with an interview by McDonald and Hammer with an important voice in British Columbia politics ; second, the Strategy Suite segment will welcome Geoff Meggs to Hotel Pacifico, where the three politicos (McDonald, Hammer, and Meggs) will break down the latest provincial news of the week; finally, the podcast will close as the hosts raid the Mini Bar, and raise a glass or take a shot at a relevant person or event (think of the closing “Hey You” segment on Curse of Politics).
Welcome to Hotel Pacifico, your 5-star podcast destination for B.C. politicos. Episode one will be released the week of October 23, 2023.
The UCP and NDP combined for close to 97% of the popular vote and all of the seats. This is an historic level of polarization with minor parties left in the locker room while the two major parties faced off on the electoral playing field.
The NDP’s win in 2015 was at the lowest point of polarization in the 30-year period between 1993 and 2023. In other words, the NDP won when the conservative vote was split.
BC had consecutive elections of two-party polarization in 1979 and 1983 at 94% and 95% combined, respectively, but were not quite as high as the Alberta 2023 result.
2. The UCP share of the popular vote almost matched 2019
The UCP popular vote was almost 53% and was only 2% below that of Jason Kenney’s win in 2019. While it was less efficient, regionally, it was resilient overall.
The combined vote of the PCs and WildRose parties in 2015 (52% combined from 28% PC; 24% WR) was about the same as the UCP in 2023.
Jason Kenney did the heavy lifting of unifying the PCs and Wildrose into the UCP and Danielle Smith unified the UCP base after the expiration of Kenney and fallout of a messy leadership campaign.
Danielle Smith is one of only three premiers who can claim a majority of votes
Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe (60%) and PEI’s Dennis King (56%) are the only other premiers to win a majority of the popular vote. Due to presence of third parties in other legislatures, achieving a majority mandate is very difficult. BC Premier David Eby and Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson are yet to gain their own mandate, having attained office mid-term.
The NDP ran the table on the centre-left
The NDP won 30% more votes in 2023 (over 775,000) than during its election win in 2015 when it won just over 600,000. 650,000 more Albertans voted NDP in 2023 than the 2012 election, just over a decade ago. Few leaders have grown and sustained a party’s vote as Rachel Notley.
There were very few electoral table scraps left for the NDP to devour on election night. The Alberta Party collapsed, and the Alberta Liberals continued their descent to the bottom.
The Alberta Party dropped from 172,000 votes in 2019 to below 13,000 in 2023.
The demise of the Alberta Liberals has been taking place since 1993 when they contended for power. During this 30-year period, they have plummeted from almost 40% of the popular vote to 0.2%.
Next time, can the NDP count on third-parties to clear the way as they did in 2023? The NDP pathway will have to be direct next time – take away UCP votes in the battleground. Consolidation can only get them so far.
Alberta has elected the most women premiers in general elections
Alberta leads all provinces and territories when it comes to electing women premiers in general elections. Three different Alberta premiers – Alison Redford, Rachel Notley, and Danielle Smith – have accomplished the feat and all in the past 11 years. Christy Clark is the only premier in Canada to win twice (in 2017, she was given the opportunity to swear in a cabinet and face a confidence vote).
Thirty years ago, on May 5, 1993, a historically-significant event in BC politics took place.
In front of over 600 supporters at the Hotel Vancouver ballroom, the Mayor of Vancouver bounded onto the stage, and announced he was seeking the leadership of the BC Liberal Party.
At 45 years old, Gordon Campbell was already doing in local government politics what no one had ever done, nor will likely ever do again – he was Mayor of Vancouver, chair of the regional district, and president of the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) at the same time. He had been mayor for almost seven years but the boundaries of local government could not contain him. He had restless energy for a new challenge, and this meant a challenge like no other.
Taking a step back, between 1952 and 1991, the Social Credit Party had governed for all but three of 39 years. When Campbell was elected mayor in 1986, the Socreds were enjoying a resurgence with leader Bill Vander Zalm, who triumphed at the polls a month earlier. However, the aging Socreds were not a great fit with the City of Vancouver nor were they a great fit with a ‘new era’ politician like Campbell. Elected as mayor in 1986, he had been careful to live up to the “Non-Partisan” aspect of the Vancouver NPA. While it was clear the NPA was not the left-wing party, it was a centrist blend of ‘free enterprisers’ – liberals, conservatives, and those simply there for good government. And as the Vander Zalm government imploded in the late 1980s, he was wise to steer clear of provincial politics.
And then in the 1991 B.C. election, the heretofore also-ran BC Liberals blew up the provincial political landscape.
During the TV debate, BC Liberal Leader Gordon Wilson caught lightning in a bottle, precipitating the collapse of the tired Socreds and a fundamental realignment of BC’s political landscape. Mike Harcourt’s new NDP government – the first NDP government since 1975 – was greeted unexpectedly by an even newer BC Liberal opposition.
Leaping from zero to 17 members, the BC Liberals were inexperienced in almost all respects. Wilson, who had been a tenacious one-man band out in the political wilderness, struggled as the leader after the election. The House Leader left caucus to sit as an Independent. The Caucus was a hotbed of unrest. By January of 1993, under huge political pressure, Wilson acceded to a leadership convention.
Wilson instantly sought to regain his leadership. Former BC Liberal leader Gordon Gibson put his name forward. Gibson had been the lone BC Liberal in the Legislature from 1975-1979 before the party slipped into sleep mode for 12 years, and had a family history in the party that led back to the 1950s with his father Gordon Gibson Sr. (‘Bull of the Woods‘) serving prominently as BC Liberal MLA and thorn in the side of the Socreds.
All eyes then turned to yet another Gordon, Mayor Campbell. An opening lay before him, but it was not as obvious as it seemed; Campbell was not a member of the BC Liberal Party. Many weren’t sure what he was in terms of partisan labels, though he was seen as a business-oriented, budget-conscious centrist that was in tune with the times.
But leading the BC Liberals? They had been in the political cold until only recently. The BC Liberal brand dated back to 1903, to the advent of party politics in British Columbia. BC Liberals had not governed since being vanquished by the Socreds in 1952 , its elected remnants had been decimated by floor-crossing MLAs in the 1970s, and the party had been further weighed down by its affiliation with the very unpopular P.E. Trudeau federal Liberal government in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Wilson picked up the leadership in 1987 after it had recently improved to 7% of the popular vote, but had no seats. Under his leadership, the party split from the federal wing before the election in 1991 and became an independent provincial party, a pivotal moment, and a precondition of its breakthrough and sustained success.
Campbell contemplated taking on this brand and the shell of an organization. It had about 3,000 members, weak riding associations, an eclectic group of MLAs who were surprised to get elected, and the continued existence of the Social Credit Party on its right flank. In order to be successful, he would need to modernize the BC Liberal Party, demonstrate its independence from the federal Liberals, and make it a vehicle for ‘free enterprise’ in order to wrest power from Mike Harcourt’s NDP government.
By 1993, there was a hunger already for change among non-NDP forces. Mike Harcourt’s NDP government was already taking on water. ‘Tax and spend’ budgets had angered voters in Campbell’s orbit. On April 5, 1993, Campbell headlined a tax revolt rally at Oakridge Mall that drew over 4,000 angry taxpayers. The issue was the NDP’s move to restrict the homeowner grant. It set off a brushfire. The Oakridge rally seemed to make the idea of an anti-NDP provincial groundswell more real. Memories of Dave Barrett’s one-and-done NDP government were fresh in the minds of seasoned politicos.
Campbell faced a fork in the road – actually more like a trident. There were three paths: (1) Lead the upstart BC Liberals; (2) Revive the Socreds which had a deeper organization and governing experience; or (3) Form a new free enterprise movement and bring the two other parties together.
All options had flaws.
The 1993 Socreds had a deeply damaged brand, lacked an urban sensibility, and were of another generation. A new party would be greeted with stiff resistance by both parties, and without any seats, would be on the outside looking in with no guarantees of gaining a foothold. Despite some brand baggage, at least the federal Liberals had been out of power for nine years, and antipathies toward the word ‘Liberal’ had faded. The BC Liberals had a relatively fresh sheet with the voters and were the Official Opposition, keeping them front and centre in Question Period for the foreseeable future.
Thus, sometime in April 1993, Campbell decided to take the plunge and make it a race of the ‘Three Gordons’ (and a Linda, Wilf, Allan, and Charles). He had heard from many BC Liberals that pledged their support, mitigating fears that it would be perceived as a hostile takeover. In fact, as a non-member, it was very important for Campbell to be invited, even drafted to run, and not press too hard appearing to want the leadership. Party members came to him throughout April. Wilson, while admired for his breakthrough, never had a deep organization behind him and seemed even weaker now. Gibson was respected for his thought leadership and policy focus, but had been out of elected politics for 14 years and was not as well known in the general public.
Campbell made it clear from the outset that he was running to be the leader of the BC Liberal Party and not looking to broker a coalition of parties. He stated his view to the media, shaped by his experience in Vancouver, when he launched his leadership bid:
“I don’t think it’s a question of parties. Frankly I think that is obsolete thinking. It is not bringing parties together; it is bringing people together that will make a difference. I am not trying to lead the Social Credit party. I am trying to lead the Liberal party. I am not in favor of the Socred way. That would be a step backward. I am not seeking a coalition.”
Campbell was newer and fresh. He had no provincial political baggage, though much was made of his business community ‘Howe Street’ connections, similar to a federal political mantra of the time – ‘Bay Street vs Main Street’ – pushed by the federal NDP. The attack sought to convey that he was more interested in business elites than regular people. The BC NDP picked its theme early and hammered it for years, not to mention Campbell’s leadership rivals playing it up.
Four MLAs from the 17-member caucus backed him from the beginning along with a cross-section of active BC Liberal members, federal Liberals, some Progressive Conservatives, but the added oomph came from two places – the NPA network in Vancouver, a highly effective political machine at that time, and from mayors and councillors around BC that he had met through his service with the UBCM. Campbell had built up friendships around the province that would belie charges that his support was too Vancouver-centric.
From the Hotel Vancouver, he headed straight to the airport and flew to Kamloops for an evening event on day one. Day two would see him hit the road to Williams Lake then onto Prince George. It was felt he needed to get out of Vancouver to campaign as soon as possible, to send a message. A campaign office was procured at City Square Mall, across the street from City Hall. The grande dame of Liberals in BC, May Brown, chaired his campaign, along with young BC Liberal MLA Gary Collins, who saw the need for the caucus and the party to evolve its leadership. From there, it was four months of relentless travel to sink his roots deeper in the party, and around the province. The NPA brought membership strength in the city, and the municipal network put meat on the bones outside Vancouver.
One odd aspect of this leadership process was that the rules had not been confirmed at the outset. There were existing rules, but the party executive expressed a strong preference to move to a universal ballot, instead of a delegated convention. In addition, it favoured an unweighted ‘one member one vote system’. This basically meant there was one ballot box; whoever got the most absolute votes province-wide would win. However, in order to effect these changes, there needed to be a party convention to approve the rules, with two-thirds support required.
On July 31st, BC Liberals convened at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Vancouver. The Campbell campaign favoured the executive’s recommendation for one member one vote, and the Gibson campaign advocated for regionally-weighted results, so that every riding was equal.
One of 689 voting cards raised in the air
The Campbell campaign was not too concerned about regional weighting – it could win either way. It favoured one member, one vote, in part, to support the party recommendation, but also from a practical perspective of campaigning, it was very focused on membership sales wherever they could be found. Regional weighting would have shifted the focus to gaming out 75 micro-campaigns. The Gibson campaign felt regional weighting was the right way to go for its interests, given Campbell’s strength in the City, and its own regional perspective (and it should be noted that the BC Liberals and other parties now use regional weighting).
Next came what turned out to be a defining moment in the leadership race. There was a heated debate on the convention floor with a long lineup of speakers. Campbell and Gibson supporters were bedecked in t-shirts, with floor captains directing traffic. Campbell delegates were instructed to stay in place and not even consider leaving the room. At last, voting cards were raised, and a manual count tabulated. The vote was 460-229 in favour of the executive’s recommendation for one member, one vote (province-wide).
As it needed two-thirds support, this meant it passed – by one vote.
The crowd was stunned, then jubilation erupted among the Campbell delegates while Gibson delegates despaired. The chair of the meeting paused, then proceeded to the next item. No immediate demand for a recount was heard. The rules were set. Campbell’s team had demonstrated considerable organizational strength at the convention and it carried through to the leadership vote.
By the time the vote was held on September 11, it was fairly clear Campbell would win. The membership of the party had grown to over 15,000, much of it driven by Campbell’s campaign. By that point, it was only a question of by how much, and whether it would need more than one ballot.
This was a real issue facing Campbell’s team – what if it did need a second ballot? This was pre-Internet. The party was using a technology called “TeleVote” where members received a code in the mail and voted their first ballot choice by phone, then waited for the results by listening to the radio or trying to find it on TV. It was not a preferential ballot, as is used today in most leadership elections.
Had it gone to a second ballot, turnout likely would have dropped off a cliff. But it didn’t get that far. Campbell won the Battle of the Three Gordons decisively with 63% of the vote on the first ballot, with Gibson in second, and Wilson well back in third.
While the leadership race had been hard work, Campbell faced little resistance. He had a blank canvas. He could redefine what it meant to be a BC Liberal, and he did. The BC Liberals were shaping up to be a real contender, led by a four-time winner from the province’s largest city. But what he had just gone through was dwarfed by his challenge going forward.
While there was goodwill from most in his caucus, and a gem in Fred Gingell who led the caucus in the interim, it was not Campbell’s team and it would take a while to learn to work together (Wilson, and his wife Judi Tyabji, left caucus immediately after the leadership vote to start a new party). Campbell matched up well against Harcourt, but it was NDP enforcer Glen Clark who would inflict political damage with relentless attacks and emerge as his main rival. Campbell had to raise money, find his way into the Legislature, win over old Socreds and Conservatives resistant to the BC Liberal brand, learn the cadence of provincial politics, recruit a campaign team, and help a 30-year old country lawyer in Matsqui take on the most experienced campaigner in British Columbia, and new leader of the Socreds, Grace McCarthy, in a titanic byelection battle.
The rest is history, as they say. Campbell encountered many obstacles and suffered setbacks. Winning the popular vote in 1996, but losing the election. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but he decided to gut it out, spending almost eight long, and, sometimes, miserable years in opposition. He triumphed in a 77-2 electoral landslide in 2001 and launched the ‘New Era for British Columbia’, the slogan of his winning campaign. The BC Liberal franchise from Campbell to Christy Clark would win the popular vote six consecutive times between 1996 and 2017 and earned majorities four consecutive times.
Over time, the makeup of the BC Liberals changed, but from the time of his leadership win, Liberals who had fled the Vander Zalm Socreds or had never warmed up to them in the first place, were at the heart of contending for power, building a party where everyone on the non-NDP side of the ledger were welcomed. Candidates and staff with Liberal pedigrees, and liberal sensibilities, took key roles, alongside those with Socred, Progressive Conservative pedigrees, and conservative sensibilities. And many had no evident federal leanings at all.
That new BC Liberal identity was being formed. It was a vehicle that occupied the centre/centre-right of the political spectrum, united mainly by economic and fiscal policy, and represented a foundation from which Campbell could move. While a formal coalition of parties never did happen, a de facto coming together of ‘free enterprise’ voters took place.
The new definition of BC Liberal would begin to mean something – not to everyone’s liking, and especially not to some die-hard Liberals who had campaigned for Wilson or were resistant to Campbell’s policy approach, but it was being legitimized to a plurality of voters in urban and rural B.C. The party left behind some of the idealists, and some unwilling to make necessary compromises to grow the party, and attracted the pragmatists and those wanting to be part of building something new. He was careful not to get drawn into federal politics, following an instinct that served him well with the NPA. He recruited a new generation of provincial politicians from all stripes. The class of 1996 was young, with the mainstream in their 30s and 40s, and he led them to government five years later.
Turning away from the Social Credit Party and building, essentially, a new party under the BC Liberal brand, under a young but experienced leader, ultimately was a winning model. The Party gained a new life in 1987 when Gordon Wilson took it on and delivered the miracle breakthrough. Campbell benefited from the shakeup in the landscape, and proved that he could take it to the next step, albeit later than he hoped. Christy Clark extended the life of the BC Liberal government for six additional years until 2017.
What if? What if Campbell had not run for the BC Liberal leadership? The landscape would be very different today. Perhaps Gordon Gibson would have led the party from 1993 on; perhaps new Socred leader Grace McCarthy would have won the Matsqui by-election and the Socreds would have hung in there longer. Different circumstances may have kept Campbell out of provincial politics indefinitely or forever. Who knows? It’s hard to imagine Campbell being in any role in provincial politics other than leader.
Today, the BC Liberal brand has been relegated to the dustbin in favour of BC United. Lessons can be learned from the BC Liberal rise to power, how it aligned with a new generation in politics, and the struggle to win.
Looking back, the BC Liberals had a remarkable 30-year period from 1987 to 2017. For almost 18 years during that span, Gordon Campbell led the party, serving close to a decade as premier. And it all started at the Hotel Vancouver on May 5th, 1993.
Mike McDonald served under all three BC Liberal leaders who led the party from 1987 – 2017. He worked for Gordon Campbell from 1992-2003, as Special Assistant in the Mayor’s Office, Campaign Director in the 1993 leadership campaign, and in various other roles in the party, Premier’s Office, and Government Caucus. He was Chief of Staff to Premier Christy Clark.
I will be writing occasional commentaries for Air Quotes media, a hub for political commentary. Air Quotes also produces the Herle Burly and Curse of Politics podcasts. Here’s my latest:
Has any province got it worse than British Columbia when it comes to representation in Ottawa? And is there anything to be done about it?
First, it’s a tough gig for a BC Member of Parliament, travel-wise. Three time zones away. The far-out Eastern Fringe, Newfoundland and Labrador, is a mere one and a half away.
It’s not like an MP can pack up the car and head home for the weekend. It’s 4,442 km to Vancouver or 4,900 km to Prince Rupert. Or, practically speaking, a 6-hour flight to Vancouver, and longer for those BC MPs requiring a connection to Vancouver Island or BC’s Interior.
Given the distance, one would think BC might get a break on the size of its constituencies. Nope. Unlike most provinces, BC doesn’t have a senatorial clause or grandfather clause guaranteeing it representation. Thus, this furthest flung province also has the distinction of representing the highest number of constituents, on average, than any other province, except Ontario, with which it is virtually tied.
Our mothers and fathers of Confederation have deemed it fit for far-flung BC to be under-represented compared to seven other provinces: the average Quebec riding has 91% of the population of the BC average, followed in descending order by Manitoba (82%), Nova Scotia (74%), Saskatchewan (69%), New Brunswick (65%), Newfoundland & Labrador (61%), and, of course, PEI (34%). You would think the CBC would care when Anne of Green Gables has three-times the voting strength than Relic from the Beachcombers.
Compounding this disorder of asymmetrical federalism, take a look at the Senate when it comes to BC. The Constitution Act, 1915 expanded the Senate by giving Western Canadian provinces 24 Senators, to put it on par with Ontario (24), Quebec (24), and the Maritimes, then just New Brunswick (10), Nova Scotia (10), and PEI (4). For BC, deemed one-quarter of the ‘West’, it means its share is six out of a total of 105 Senators (5.7%). The idea of the Senate bringing regional balance certainly does not apply to BC, especially when it is already under-represented on a rep-by-pop basis, and is located the furthest distance from the capital. (Mind you, most British Columbians couldn’t name a BC senator, and the latest vacancy went unfilled for almost three years without much notice).
Continuing on with this extended grievance, let’s take a look at BC’s contributions to national leadership. We can at least fall back on the glorious reign of BC’s one true born-and-bred prime minister who served ably as the 19th to serve the office. For 132 days, Port Alberni-born Kim Campbell ruled from coast to coast to coast only to have her government exterminated and her political party ultimately extinguished. And there it ends for true-BC prime ministers. About one-third of one year out of 155+ years of Confederation. Sure, BC can lay partial claim to John A. MacDonald who represented Victoria, despite never visiting, John Turner, who had a strong association with the province though principally from Eastern Canada, and Justin Trudeau, who has lived here though, like Turner, not really from here. We simply don’t churn out those national leaders.
Distance is part of it, and more importantly, it’s language. French is not a day-to-day reality in BC. It takes a motivated and ambitious politician to choose national office. Next door in Alberta, Joe Clark and Stephen Harper had the foresight to be bilingual. In BC, among Liberals and Conservatives, only E.Davie Fulton comes to mind as a BC-raised national leadership contender who spoke French, and no other for the contending parties in the past half-century.
As the third largest province, what’s BC’s place at the federal cabinet table? BC has not been especially influential at the federal cabinet table either. Sure, we’ve had some strong ministers over the years, but have never produced a finance minister. Huh.
BC usually has the middle-weights, and they are not especially high-profile in BC either. We aren’t sitting back at home watching what our federal ministers are up to on the 6pm news. They are seldom on it. Our sport in BC over the years has been provincial politics. Federal politics is that faraway place in Ottawa dealing with issues that aren’t the bread and butter of BC daily life. The idea of the mythical “BC Minister” or “BC Lieutenant” calling the shots for BC at the federal cabinet table isn’t reality, or if it is, it isn’t the perception.
Now, having laid out the case for why BC has a shabby deal, and how BC returns the favour with ambivalence toward its federal institutions, I turn my attention to the recent proposal to continue with a hybrid parliament.
If there’s any group that should benefit from more flexibility, it’s BC MPs. I get it that there is no replacement for the real thing. Even BC MPs will benefit from spending lots of time in Ottawa, building relationships, spending time in the House of Commons, and mastering how these arcane institutions work. But it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. The travel for BC MPs is gruelling, and, as mentioned, they get no breaks on the size of their ridings.
In the major parties from BC, women are very under-represented: three of 15 Liberals, and two of 13 Conservatives. In both cases, this works against cabinet representation from BC. The NDP are much better represented by gender, but they aren’t looking to form a cabinet anytime soon. All parties combined, BC lags behind the national average in terms of representation of women from BC (27%). Are the challenges of representing BC constituencies a factor in this gender imbalance? My decades of observing candidate recruitment suggests, strongly, yes.
Not only is representing BC in Ottawa tough on any MP, it is especially hard for those with kids at home – mothers or fathers. You either move the family to Ottawa or you accept there will be prolonged absences. It’s a terrible trade-off that a hybrid parliament can ameliorate. There are countless stories of BC MPs who hit the bottle, or worse. We expect a lot from MPs, however, the workplace conditions of a BC MP is borderline ridiculous. Fly home on a Friday (10 hours transit time), work Saturday in the constituency, fly to Ottawa on Sunday (10 hours). You have to really love it to do it.
The hybrid parliament offers a release valve, providing the option to take some meetings or House duty virtually from the constituency office on a Friday or even spending a week in the constituency instead of the Capital when it’s warranted. A forced march to Ottawa benefits those most with the geographical advantage, and puts the most strain on those with the most travel.
Virtual help notwithstanding, BC gets short shrift when it comes to representation. If we were sticklers for rep-by-pop in Canada, BC would have four more seats based on a 343 seat House.
But, we ought to think a little harder how we can get more people from BC into federal office, and help them be more effective once they get there. Regional alienation characterizes the federal-provincial debate between Ottawa and Alberta-Saskatchewan. Regional ambivalence in BC could be a greater concern. If we fail to recruit and elect those who aspire to fully represent BC in Parliament, the idea of Canada out here in British Columbia may someday be greeted with a collective shrug.
The last few months have provided fresh case studies about political parties in the parliamentary system that change leaders while governing.
Most leaders come to power whilst their party is in opposition. Lose an election and the pressure mounts for change. Why leave when you’re governing?
But sometimes, heads of government are forced out when their re-election prospects look bleak and/or they have lost the trust and confidence of the grassroots of their party.
This was the case recently in the United Kingdom and in the Province of Alberta.
And sometimes leaders leave for health reasons – as is the case in the Province of British Columbia.
In all of these cases, the selection of the new leader, and, therefore, new head of government, is in the hands of the members of the respective political parties – a small percentage of the overall population. The general public just sits back and watches while a new prime minister or premier emerges – someone you may have never expected to be leading when you voted in the previous general election.
It’s actually more inclusive than before
Back in the ‘old days’, leadership election was the purview of party caucuses. Win the support of your colleagues and you become leader.
Then, in Canada, parties moved toward delegated conventions. Each riding would elect delegates from among its members. Those delegates would congregate in a central place to hear speeches and vote. The conventions would often take multiple ballots where delegates voted each time, after the bottom candidate was knocked out and others chose to pack it in. Many conventions were exciting from a participant and viewer standpoint. Delegated convention, on a national scale, could include anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 voters.
As exciting as they may have been, many clamoured for change. The delegated conventions were backroom affairs where party insiders controlled the process. Members back home watched on TV while the 8 or 12 delegates from their riding decided on leadership election at the exciting convention. Mind you, those delegates were probably elected with a mandate to support a particular candidate, but the folks back home were on the couch while the delegates were wined and dined and had the influence on the convention floor.
The calls for “one member – one vote” began in the 1990s in Canada and most parties have a form of that for leadership election today. In Canada, there are variations between weighted and unweighted. Weighted means each riding is basically equally (as is the case in delegated conventions). Regardless of whether you have 1,000 members or 100 members, you still have the same clout. In unweighted, it’s one big bucket of votes.
As a result of one member-one vote, more people than ever have a direct vote in leadership elections in the parliamentary system. In the UK Conservative leadership election, 141,725 voted in the race that elected Liz Truss. In Alberta, 84,593 UCP members voted in the leadership elections that produced Danielle Smith. In the federal Conservative leadership in 2022, over 430,000 members voted – a Canadian record.
However, in spite of this huge increase in participation in internal leadership selection, it is still a far cry from the mandate one receives in a general election. In the previous general election, the UK Conservatives received almost 14 million votes – about 100X that voted in the 2022 leadership process. The Alberta UCP received over 1 million votes in the previous election, but less than 9% of that total participated in their leadership process.
And BC? In 2020, John Horgan’s NDP received almost 900,000 votes, but at the time Horgan announced his plans to retire earlier this summer, it has been publicly reported that the party’s membership base had shrunk to as low as 11,000, representing just over 1% of the voters that elected them.
The pitfalls of one member – one vote
One of the reasons or theories in support of one member – one vote is that it more closely mirrors a general election than delegated conventions or caucus selection. Include more people and you are more likely to end up with a leader who has broader appeal, so the theory went.
In my own experience, that was probably the case in 2011 when Christy Clark was elected leader of the BC Liberal Party. She had broader public appeal than other contenders, but was not as strong among party insiders and certainly would not have won a vote held just in caucus.
Plus, weird things can happen at delegated convention where a dark horse ‘comes up the middle’. Unexpected leaders like Joe Clark (PC 1976), Bob Skelly (BC NDP 1984), and Stephane Dion (LPC 2006) became leader in large part because they were less objectionable and/or over-performed at the convention, but ultimately were not very successful in rallying their party or resonating with the public.
While one member-one vote brings out the party’s membership base, that is no guarantee of mirroring the party’s voter base – or the voters that the party needs to win the next election. The membership base can be more extreme, hard line, or issue obsessed than regular voters.
In Alberta, the appetite for change was already strong among grassroots members – 48% of whom voted to replace Premier Jason Kenney in May 2022. This reflected Kenney’s lack of popularity in the polls. When it came time to replace him, party members opted to go outside the caucus for a leader with views in stark opposition to Kenney. Danielle Smith is a known commodity in Alberta, and had served as Opposition Leader, yet some of her policies and positions are very different than those the UCP campaigned on in 2019. In terms of the ‘red meat’ (e.g., Sovereignty Act, appeals to the unvaccinated) she threw out to UCP members in order to win, will that be appetizing to the broader UCP voter base and swing voters?
In the UK, Liz Truss emerged as Conservative leader once members got their say. In their process, the caucus narrows down the choices to two then the members decide. Truss was third choice on the first caucus ballot but made the top two by the 5th ballot. She won the membership vote handily demonstrating how she resonated more with party grassroots than Westminster colleagues. She set forth on implementing her promises and caused a firestorm when markets reacted badly and stability was threatened. Her poll numbers crashed. After 37 days, she has already sacked her finance minister while a daily newspaper has a live feedcomparing her political lifespan to a head of lettuce. The UK Conservative members clearly backed her policies but public pressure has forced her to back down. Are UK Conservative members that far off the political mainstream?
In BC, there is a different issue. The NDP has not yet elected its successor, but it is facing a math problem. The membership base was very low when the leadership process started. While the UK Conservatives freeze their membership list to prevent new members from joining when a leadership race is called, Canadian political parties tend to have a period of time for membership sign-ups to spark renewal and generate excitement and fundraising. Such is the case with the BC NDP which allowed a period of about 8-10 weeks for sign-ups. Leading contender David Eby managed to sew up the vast majority of caucus, earning 48 endorsements of the 57-member caucus. It seemed like a done deal. However, MLAs only get one vote, just like anyone else who joins the party. With potential MLA contenders declining to run, Eby appeared to have a clear path to acclamation. Then along came a challenger.
Anjali Appadurai is writing the textbook case of a challenger who has no elected experience, no support from caucus, scant support from party insiders, but is able to fully leverage the rules to her advantage. A weak membership base made the party ripe for the picking. The BC Liberal opposition in BC recently chose a leader with over 30,000 members voting. Appadurai would have sized up the NDP situation and concluded that 5,000 to 10,000 new members would give her a chance to win. And as an experienced organizer, with strong links to environmental groups, she knew where to find them.
That’s fair cricket, as far as I’m concerned. The rules allow for new members. Leaving aside the political side show of ‘Green Party hostile takeover’ (a silly premise) and allegations of paid-for members, this situation was allowed to happen through complacency. David Eby, should he prevail as leader, will have done so with probably the weakest membership sign-up in a Canadian one member-one vote election, ever. By all accounts, he brought in little, relying on the existing small membership base, where he apparently has a strong following, and caucus support.
Albeit a former NDP federal candidate, Appadurai is a true outsider who opposes many of the policies of the government she wants to lead. Her policies would be a major change of course. And this could happen because she signed up maybe 5,000 to 10,000 members and had some support from the existing small base of members? An Appadurai government would be nothing short of a coup in Canada’s third-largest province, a political coup obviously, but one that the general public never could have anticipated. To compare to Alberta, Appadurai’s policies would be more starkly different than her predecessor and she is much less-known than Danielle Smith, not to mention not having any elected experience. It would be unfair to voters, who voted for John Horgan and his policies, to end up with the political whiplash offered by an Appadurai government. Frankly, it’s ridiculous that it even got this far.
The True Election
At the end of the day, there is actually only one real leadership election. The Crown decides.
By convention, the King or, in Canada, the Governor-General or Lieutenant-Governor, accepts the governing party’s choice of leader. However, that is based on a demonstration by the incoming leader that he or she can command confidence.
In the case of Liz Truss and Danielle Smith, they have passed that test. While espousing policies that may be off the mainstream for voters and even members in their own party, they are still, for now, seen to be able to command a majority in parliament. When Christy Clark was elected leader of the BC Liberal Party in 2011, she only had one MLA endorse her. But her history as a cabinet minister, deep ties in the party, and 1:1 diplomacy with the caucus assured her of confidence when she arrived at Government House. This is now the question for the BC NDP.
Sure, they may bounce Appadurai from the race on some grounds. The cut-to-the chase reality, however, is that she surely does not have any chance of commanding confidence in the Legislature. It is hard to believe that 44 of the 57 NDP MLAs would turn the keys over to her given her policy statements and lack of experience. In that case, she wouldn’t make it to Government House. She would be a leader of a political party, not the leader of its parliamentary wing. They are two distinct roles and one does not guarantee the other. This is obviously a very unwelcome scenario for the NDP. It’s one thing to entertain a challenger that represents a point of view within the party who is running to make a point; but it’s quite another when they could govern!
Thus, the question is: would the NDP MLAs support her as head of their government? This is the question all government caucuses should be asked before a leadership candidate even gets on the ballot.
How best to change leaders of governments on the fly?
All leadership processes have flaws, but electing a leader while governing is especially perilous.
One member – one vote systems need to take the parliamentary caucus into account to some extent, as they do in the UK. While that is no guarantee of smooth political passage, it does provide for more legitimacy.
I sympathize with the reforming impulse. Not many will say political insiders should have more power. Leadership change, especially after a long reign, can help reset a party’s direction in a way that is positive and sometimes it takes the membership to make that happen.
There is a natural tension that should exist between those guiding the political system, the membership base, and the public at large. First of all, the incoming leader needs to have been seen to have gone through a rigorous test. In fairness to voters, the incoming leaders should also have reasonably consistent views with those put forward by that party in the previous general election. If there is to be a major course change, the new leader should go quickly to the polls to earn a new mandate.
Parties can set membership cut-off dates at the time a vacancy opens to prevent takeovers. That deprives them of new energy, but that is a mechanism to control. In a perfect world, political parties would have ongoing vibrant memberships that attend non-leadership conventions, debate policies at riding level, strengthen the party system, while being more resilient in terms of ‘instant members’ and takeovers. There is a clear trend in Canada that has seen the diminishment of member involvement outside of leadership processes. Members even have less say in candidate selection than they used to, yielding their power to the leader and party officials. Stronger grassroots would be a much-needed counter balance to the centralization of power in political parties, but to suggest that may happen in the near-term is wishful thinking.
Many political observers, including media, say parties should go back to delegated conventions. There’s a fair amount of nostalgia for them given some of the exciting outcomes in the past. Some great leaders emerged from that process, but great leaders have also emerged from one member-one vote. Delegated conventions are less transparent and heavily brokered. Be careful what you wish for.
Wherever, and whenever, there is a leadership change resulting in a new prime minister or premier, it’s an opportunity to influence. Special interest groups often make full use of the process. But individual citizens can join a party and vote, if there’s still time to join. As the numbers demonstrated above, one’s influence in a party membership price is sometimes 100X the impact of one’s vote in a general election. For $5 or $10, it’s a pretty good deal.
And given the fact that a new leader will presumably govern (assuming confidence), it’s time to put these processes under more rigorous oversight by independent bodies.
The only other piece of advice I have is that when a new prime minister or premier is elected in a general election, try to assess whether their political lifespan is longer than a head of lettuce. You may end up with someone in charge of government that you didn’t expect and not have much to say about it.
BC Liberal candidate Eleanore Sturko marched to victory on Saturday in Surrey South, winning a seat that the party would typically view as a ‘safe seat’ until recently.
Here are the results of the by-election compared to the 2017 and 2020 general election results:
*By-election results are not final
Hot take:
The BC Liberals won, which was no small thing. A loss here would have been a major setback. After being pummelled by John Horgan’s NDP in the 2020 general election, the BC Liberals have shown they can win again, albeit in very friendly territory. Moreover, the BC Liberals gain a potential frontbencher from the Lower Mainland who, among other things, presents a new face for the party in the LGBTQ+ community.
NDP poll results didn’t translate to Surrey South. In 2020, the NDP won the popular vote 48% to 34% – a massive margin. Since then, the NDP have sustained that polling gap in many polls, including a Leger poll that recently showed a 16 point gap. With those kind of numbers, we could have expected a close race in Surrey South, similar to 2020. Instead, the final result (percentage of vote) looks very much like the 2017 dead-heat general election. The NDP didn’t go all-out to win this by-election – the leadership vacuum existing between Premier Horgan packing his bags and David Eby, presumably, waiting to pick up the keys may have been a factor.
Neither party got the vote out – while the BC Liberals got enough votes out to win, both the BC Liberals and NDP received significantly fewer votes than previous elections. Low turnout is normal for a by-election, indicating low voter interest and perhaps low voter anger too. The summer timing certainly conspired against high turnout as well.
The BC Conservativesshowed up and it didn’t impact the result– the BC Conservatives didn’t run a candidate in 2017 or 2020, but they showed up for the by-election and garnered about 13% of the vote. This could have been highly problematic for the BC Liberals in a close race, but Sturko still won with a Cadieux-like margin. Let’s say Jinny Sims becomes mayor and resigns her seat in neighbouring Panorama – a 13% BC Conservative vote there would make life more difficult for BC Liberal chances.
What happened to the Greens? – Sonia Furstenau’s Greens fell to less than 4% of the vote. Is the Green brand in a funk? Normally, a by-election would be a time to stand out, but they ended up in fourth, here, well behind the BC Conservative. Surrey is not a Green hotspot though so their attention may be elsewhere.
I recently wrote about the consequential BC by-elections of the past 50 years. In Surrey South, BC Liberals held a seat they have traditionally held so it doesn’t appear to be historically important, except that the margin of victory could indicate that BC politics is returning to a more competitive footing. The by-election result may not be the cause of a new dynamic, but rather an indicator of what is already taking place. The 2020 general election was an outlier in terms of the pandemic and that the NDP had a major leadership advantage. Perhaps it was an aberration, like 2001, and we are slowly returning to the polarized, competitive political landscape that has been typical of BC politics since the mid 1970s.
I guess you could say the Surrey South by-election was like an NHL exhibition game – interesting, sparsely attended, an opportunity to see some new talent (Sturko), but the real action will be when the regular season starts in December once the new NDP leader gets on the ice.
UPDATE: The Vancouver Mt. Pleasant and Langford-Juan de Fuca by-elections have been set for Saturday, June 24, 2023. This post was first published prior to the Surrey South by-election in September 2022. Revisions at end of post.
Premier John Horgan called a by-election in Surrey South for September 10th.
What happens in a by-election, anyway? For a brief time, all of the political parties are focused organizationally on one place because someone resigned, died, or, worse yet, was recalled. By-elections usually have low voter turnout and may appear to average voters to have little consequence to their daily lives. The host riding is deluged with professional campaigners and out-of-town volunteers that door knock the riding like never before then, when it’s over, they all go home. By-elections are a pulse taker, a message tester, and a get-out-the-vote drill – a political laboratory for political parties to try new things to apply in the next general election. Sometimes, they are the doorway for a new political leader to enter the Legislature (or prematurely return to private life).
And while it seems that the Surrey South by-election is a non-event that won’t have any impact on the power balance in the Legislature, by-elections in British Columbia have often been harbingers of things to come. In the past 50 years, there are many examples of by-elections influencing future events, especially in regard to the leadership of ‘free enterprise’ forces in BC.
1973: The Re-Making of the Free Enterprise Coalition Part 1
In 1972, Dave Barrett’s NDP put an end to 20 years of rule by W.A.C. Bennett and the Social Credit Party. In September 1973, Bill Bennett was elected in the Okanagan South by-election, assuming his father’s seat. However, this was not necessarily a straightforward dynastic succession. For starters, the by-election took place in the midst of a leadership race to replace Bennett the Elder. If Bennett the Younger lost the by-election, it would have been a pretty hard sell that he could win the province. Meanwhile, 33-year-old BC Conservative leader Derril Warren had led his party in the 1972 election from zilch to 10% of the popular vote, vote-splitting the Socreds and contributing largely to their defeat. Now, a year later, Warren was still chasing the Bennetts in a ‘By-election Battle for Free Enterprise’ between the tired old Socreds and the surging Conservatives.
1973 by-election set Bill Bennett on a path to power
In Bob Plecas’s biography of Bill Bennett, he described the view of the Vancouver business establishment that Warren was BC’s version of Peter Lougheed, the popular Alberta premier, who had taken the Alberta Progressive Conservatives from the wilderness to power in 1971, vanquishing the tired Alberta Social Credit dynasty that had governed for over 35 years. Recounted Bennett in Plecas’s book, “I had to set the trap. First of all, I had to wait and wait and wait, making it possible so he [Warren] could be drawn in”. It was no sure thing that Bennett would win. According to Allen Garr in his book Tough Guy: Bill Bennett and the Taking of British Columbia, “Twenty-five Kelowna businessmen gathered at one of their regular watering holes to decide who they would back in the by-election, and they had two choices: Bill Bennett… and the new leader of the BC Tories [Warren]. The vote was twenty-two to three in Warren’s favour. When Bill heard about the decision he went on an arm-twisting mission against his old high-school buddies.” When the Vancouver Province endorsed Warren as the best pick to take on the Barrett government, “ten thousand tear sheets were distributed across the riding. It reinforced anti-Vancouver sentiment, the big-city-knows-best feeling that many residents feel. Suits from Vancouver seldom understand the Interior, and the backlash hurt Warren,” wrote Plecas.
A day before the vote, Warren complained to Sun reporter Marjorie Nichols, “The people running the Social Credit show” had carried on a vicious personal campaign. “One Social Credit campaigner said they had a tape… they didn’t say whether they tapped the phone or what. They said they had a tape of me applying for a Social Credit membership but being rejected.”
Bill Bennett prevailed, albeit with a modest 39% of the vote, holding off Warren who came in third with 24%, behind the NDP. Bennett would go on to win the leadership, recruit five MLAs to cross the floor (3 Liberal, 1 Conservative, 1 NDP), recruit former BC Liberal leadership candidate Bill Vander Zalm, and lead a revitalized Socred-led free enterprise coalition to a decisive victory in the 1975 election over Barrett’s NDP. In fact, the NDP’s popular vote barely changed but Bennett’s free enterprise unification plan, starting with the 1973 by-election, put most free enterprise votes under his umbrella. Warren didn’t make it to the 1975 election and both the Conservatives and Liberals collapsed. As a post-script, Barrett lost his own seat in the 1975 election and would contest and win the 1976 Vancouver East by-election, which took place when outgoing cabinet minister Bob Williams made way to allow Barrett to re-enter the Legislature. Barrett and Bennett would face each other two more times, with Bennett the Younger winning each time.
1981: The Roadmap to Victory
Mid-way through Bennett’s second term, the Socreds were flagging. The 1979 election win was the most polarizing result in BC electoral history and Bennett realized his party would need to regroup and retool. Bennett dispatched his friend Hugh Harris to survey the landscape outside BC with a view to modernizing how the party fought elections, eventually gravitating toward the “Big Blue Machine” approach of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party.
Harris brought back his learnings in time for the 1981 Kamloops by-election created when Socred MLA and Minister Rafe Mair resigned to pursue a career in talk radio. The smart money was on the NDP picking up the then-bellwether seat of Kamloops (“so goes Kamloops, so goes the province”).
As Plecas describes, “The political machine that Bennett had built using Hugh Harris’s advice was ready for a test drive… For most of the by-election, Barrett was in New Zealand attending a world conference on socialism. Every weekend of the by-election Bennett was in the riding spending day after day in the small towns that surround Kamloops.” The modernized campaign model was “coupled with the efforts of thousands of volunteers, many who travelled up to the Loops for the weekend. They out organized the NDP and worked door by door on the ground”. Bud Smith, who had worked closely with Harris rebuilding the party, ran the local campaign.
Local Socred candidate Claude Richmond was propelled into office, aided by Harris’s blueprint, with a win that was arguably a template for the forthcoming 1983 general election. The 1981 by-election win remains a part of free enterprise lore.
1988-1989: Socred Death Spiral
In 1988 and 1989, the Vander Zalm government was beset by controversy and being beset by controversy is not a great time to face a series of by-elections where you have to defend your own seats. First up was Boundary-Similkameen in June 1988. Long-time MLA Jim Hewitt resigned. The riding had been Socred even before his time; not even the Barrett sweep in 1972 could wrest control of it away. The NDP’s Bill Barlee stepped up to run, after previous unsuccessful attempts, and wiped the floor with the Socreds winning by 17%. The win sent shockwaves through the Socred government. A footnote to this race was Liberal Judi Tyabji winning 11% after a high-profile campaign. BC hadn’t seen the last of Tyabji nor the new BC Liberal leader Gordon Wilson.
Next up in the Socred By-election Horror Series was Vancouver Point Grey in March 1989. The circumstances of this by-election are historically important. First-term Socred MLA Kim Campbell resigned to run federally after falling out with Premier Vander Zalm on the abortion issue (and other issues). Campbell won federal office as a Progressive Conservative and was prime minister within five years, the first and only female prime minister in Canadian. Back in Pt. Grey, the Socreds put up financial analyst Michael Levy while the NDP nominated Dr. Tom Perry in an upset over establishment NDP candidate Johanna den Hertog. Perry trounced the Socreds, winning 53% of the vote. (The NDP picked up a second win that night in Nanaimo where Jan Pullinger assumed the seat from outgoing veteran Dave Stupich, but there was little doubt about the outcome there.)
BC Liberal leader and Sunshine Coast resident Gordon Wilson parachuted into Point Grey as well. His campaign did not lack for money and had high hopes given that the riding overlapped with the federal riding of Liberal leader John Turner, and received a boost from popular federal Liberal leadership candidate Jean Chrétien. An interesting back story is that when Kim Campbell resigned in the fall of 1988, businessman Jack Poole was traveling BC meeting grassroots Liberals to assess the viability of reviving and leading the party. Though Wilson was leader, Poole and his team, which included former leader Gordon Gibson, were of a mind that there needed to be a fully funded, credible free enterprise alternative to Vander Zalm’s Socreds that was seemingly beyond the capability of a Sunshine Coast college instructor/pig farmer (Wilson). West side Vancouver Liberals were very keen on Poole, but over the fall, he got cold feet. After the federal election concluded, Poole ditched the idea, and Wilson swiftly announced he would run in Pt. Grey, over the wishes of the locals. I would say the Leader always has the prerogative to run, especially if he or she doesn’t have a seat, but in this case, it did not end up happily ever after. Wilson came a disappointing third with 20% of the vote (he would have their day in the sun later).
Onto the Cariboo for a by-election caused by the death of long-time MLA Alex Fraser, an institution in the region. Like Boundary-Similkameen and Point Grey, Cariboo was a 2-member seat, an oddity of our system until 1986. Fraser’s seat-mate was Socred MLA Neil Vant who was assuredly not an institution in the Cariboo. Expecting to retain the riding, the Socreds had a hotly contested nomination meeting between auctioneer and Vander Zalm-loyalist Joe Wark and Quesnel Mayor Mike Pearce. Wark won by one vote squeaker (337-336) at the Williams Lake curling rink, and remarked, “We have no room in the Social Credit party for rebels and that sort of thing”. Pearce, who self-described as representing a “new style”, was probably more electable, in part because he was endorsed by Alex Fraser’s widow, Gertrude. Wark was a ‘Zalmoid’ and bedevilled by Premier Vander Zalm’s decision to remove Alex Fraser from cabinet while he was battling throat cancer. During the by-election campaign, Fraser’s widow suggested strongly that the NDP candidate, Dave Zirnhelt, would be just fine as MLA. Zirnhelt, a rancher and horse logger, had run as a Liberal in the 1969 provincial election before migrating to the NDP. He would go on to wallop Wark with 56% of the vote and serve as a senior cabinet minister in the 1990s. More than Boundary-Similkameen, this result was a very bad omen for the Socreds. Pearce would try again and got the Socred nod in the 1991 election in Cariboo North (the riding was split) and would lose to the NDP’s Frank Garden. The Liberals were confined to a meagre 3% in the by-election despite their authentic and good-humoured candidate Darwin Netzel. He would contest the 1991 election in Cariboo North and see his vote grow 6-fold.
Finally, and mercifully, the fourth and final by-election featuring a Socred-held riding was Oak Bay-Gordon Head, held on December 13, 1989. Attorney General Brian Smith resigned his seat following a public clash with Premier Vander Zalm. Smith was the runner-up in the 1986 leadership race to Zalm, but it didn’t take long for their working relationship to go off the rails. The Socreds recruited a top-notch candidate, Susan Brice, then the Mayor of Oak Bay. They could not have found a better candidate. Brice and her campaign manager, Frank Leonard, ran essentially a local campaign focusing on her strengths and downplaying the premier. Said Brice, “People want greater tolerance from the government, the party and the Premier.” The NDP nominated Elizabeth Cull who started out as the underdog but was backed by a major organizing machine on the South Island that could taste victory. The Liberals nominated an active party member, Paul McKivett, who ran a fully funded campaign with lots of volunteers too, and attracted support from Socreds who wanted to see the end of Vander Zalm. In fact, McKivett’s 9% was probably the difference in Cull’s 377 vote win over Brice. There was a sense that Zalm would pack it in if he lost Oak Bay-Gordon Head and for 35 days he kept British Columbians in suspense. In January 1990, he scheduled a province-wide televised address to reset his agenda and managed to survive a little longer in the job before being forced from office a year later. Cull would go on to become Health Minister and Finance Minister in the Harcourt government.
Zalm escaped the hangman’s gallows in 1990 but would resign from office in 1991.
Each by-election loss reinforced the death spiral of the government. Heretofore safe seats were coughed up. Earlier in the decade, the Bill Bennett Socreds confidently won the Kamloops by-election demoralizing the NDP. Now, later in the same decade and under a different leader, the by-election losses were crushing to the Socreds and helped create an inevitability of NDP victory. Mike Harcourt would cruise to victory in 1991 with a majority government. The by-elections also meant something for the third-party BC Liberals. While their by-election results were underwhelming compared to the NDP, they were a training ground for leader Gordon Wilson. His breakthrough in 1991, when the party went from zero seats to 17 and Official Opposition, was a result, in part, of their determination to hang in there and be in a position to take advantage of good luck and timing when it materialized during the general election campaign. Thus, as events turned out, the Socred death spiral benefited the BC Liberals every bit as much as the NDP.
1994-95: The Re-Making of the Free Enterprise Coalition Part 2
The 1991 general election remade BC politics with the BC Liberals jumping to Official Opposition and the Socreds declining to third-party status. While the BC Liberals now had the advantage, the question was not settled as to which party would lead free enterprise forces going forward. By 1993, each party had a new leader. BC Liberal leader Gordon Wilson lost his leadership to Vancouver Mayor Gordon Campbell, while Socred legend Grace McCarthy took on the task to rebuild the party she had helped save, with Bill Bennett, in the 1970s.
A pair of Abbotsford-area by-elections in 1994 and 1995 would settle the question of who would lead free enterprise – for the most part.
One of the seven Socreds elected in 1991, Matsqui MLA Peter Dueck, decided it was time to force the issue and resigned his seat after having had spent time as an Independent MLA. Meanwhile, BC Liberal MLA Art Cowie (Vancouver-Quilchena) resigned his seat to make way for Campbell. Two by-elections were called for February 17, 1994. Socred leader Grace McCarthy chose to run in Socred-friendly Matsqui rather than take on Campbell near her home base in Vancouver. Campbell would cruise to an easy victory and the real fight was in Matsqui where the BC Liberals could put a stake in the heart of the Socreds for good.
In Matsqui local members of the BC Liberal Party gathered at a high school gymnasium to nominate their giant killer. Some BC Liberal insiders favoured a Vancouver lawyer and high school basketball star who had strong ties to the area, but a young country lawyer and school trustee upset those plans by winning 102 – 84 (back when nomination meeting results were disclosed). The task of defeating Socred legend Grace McCarthy was thus on the shoulders of Mike de Jong, then shy of his 30th birthday. It was a new vs. old generational match up. De Jong had a spirited team, led by campaign manager Dave Holmberg and wily ex-scribe Mark Rushton. The Socreds dug in and had a deep supporters list to draw on though there was much attrition to the oncoming BC Liberals and bleeding to fledgling Reform BC (unaffiliated with federal Reform Party) and the Family Coalition Party. A sidebar to the Battle of Free Enterprise was the NDP candidate situation. Sam Wagar was nominated but it became known to the media that the government’s candidate in the Bible Belt was actually a witch. Wagar, who practiced the Wiccan religion, was non-plussed, but it was apparently too much for the political managers at Party HQ. Wagar was sent packing as a new candidate was conjured. So much for religious freedom.
It was a heated campaign in the depths of the Matsqui winter. All candidates meetings were tense and scrappy. BC Liberal plants took the microphone to ask McCarthy detailed local questions to make hay of her parachute candidacy. De Jong defeated McCarthy by a mere 42 (41.77% to 41.45%) votes in a dramatic win. As Vaughn Palmer reported, at about 10:15pm, de Jong showed up in his blue Miata sports car, “mounted the platform amid general delirium and shouts of ‘Banzai’ from an enthusiastic Japanese supporter”.
A key part of the story was also the other parties: Reform took 1,250 votes and Family Coalition Party took 275 votes, both making it harder for the Socreds to save their leader.
Mike de Jong has been around for a long time, but not as long as Vaughn Palmer!
The free enterprise question seemingly settled, McCarthy sailed off into the political sunset. But the issue of who would lead the free enterprise coalition was actually still unsettled. With the ink barely dry on the by-election results in Matsqui, Social Credit MLAs Jack Weisgerber, Lyall Hanson, Richard Neufeld, and Len Fox stunned BC Liberals and Socreds alike by joining the BC Reform Party, whose leader, Ron Gamble, had contested the Matsqui by-election. Reform was a hot brand federally at the time and had no baggage provincially. Weisgerber and co. wanted a fresh start. This was a massive setback for consolidating and unifying the free enterprise vote.
Fast forward one year to 1995. One of the last remaining Socred MLAs, Harry de Jong, resigned to run for mayor of Abbotsford. This again set up a ‘Battle for Free Enterprise’. This time, the BC Liberals nominated dairy farmer John van Dongen while BC Reform – now led by Weisgerber and the competing free enterprise alternative to the BC Liberals – put forward Rev. Bill Kilpatrick. In contrast to 1994, the BC Liberals brought a more modernized approach and more resources, spearheaded by newly recruited provincial campaign director Greg Lyle. Reform BC had a strong brand that was aligned with historic voting patterns in the Fraser Valley. Liberal?! In the Fraser Valley? That was a tough sell. But the BC Liberals gutted it out with van Dongen winning by 291 votes after a late campaign controversy dogged Kilpatrick.
Now, the free enterprise coalition question was mainly settled, again, so it seemed. Mike Harcourt’s NDP government was in a tailspin and Campbell’s BC Liberals were way ahead in the polls. The NDP switched leaders, with Glen Clark taking the helm and reviving the party’s fortunes. In the subsequent 1996 election, Campbell’s BC Liberals won 42% of the popular vote, more than the NDP, but had fewer seats, which is all that matters. BC Reform had about 9% of the vote and 2 seats and played the spoiler, especially up country. The BC Liberals had become the dominant free enterprise alternative, but not dominant enough to defeat the NDP.
1997-99: The Re-Making of the Free Enterprise Coalition Part 3
Never before had the NDP won back-to-back general elections in BC. After the 1996 campaign, there was a sense of urgency that free enterprise forces needed to unify, however, there was still some disagreement that the BC Liberals were the best vehicle. Glen Clark’s NDP government got off to a very rough start, but Gordon Campbell still had to prove that his BC Liberals could go the distance if he was going to get another shot. From 1997-99, he faced a string of by-election tests – in his own party’s seats – that would settle the question once and for all.
First up was Surrey-White Rock. Wilf Hurd, elected as a BC Liberal in 1991, decided to try his luck in federal politics. Once an MLA is nominated as a candidate in a federal campaign, he or she must resign their seat in the provincial Legislature, even if they lose their federal bid (as Hurd did). Former White Rock Mayor Gordie Hogg stepped up to contest the riding for the BC Liberals. Hogg had encountered some negative publicity not long before dating back to his time as a provincial public servant in the Corrections branch, which created some nervousness among BC Liberals, but he had been a popular mayor. He was challenged by BC Reform candidate David Secord. South Surrey-White Rock seemed like fertile territory for Reform – it voted strongly Reform federally and had the demographics that suited them (old and white). It did not look like an easy win for the BC Liberals as they had been having a rocky year, but Hogg won the by-election handily, with 52% of the vote to Reform’s 26%. The NDP were an afterthought at 12% (no one expected them to contend). Campbell’s BC Liberals had passed this test. Shortly after the by-election result, Peace River North MLA Richard Neufeld, elected as a Reform MLA in 1996, crossed the floor to the BC Liberals, helping to fortify the BC Liberals.
Next up was the Parksville-Qualicum by-election in 1998. This by-election came about in the oddest of circumstances when BC Liberal MLA Paul Reitsma, a five-term mayor of Parksville elected to the Legislature in 1996, conducted a comically inept stealth mission on the letters to the editor pages. Concocting the identity of ‘Warren Betanko’, Reitsma fired in letters to the local paper under Betanko’s name that attacked his enemies. The local paper got wise and outed Reitsma publicly one morning. By lunchtime, Reitsma was out of caucus. Not long after, local residents launched a recall campaign, which had never been successfully undertaken before (recall laws had only been in place for a few years). The recall mechanism was viewed as impossible given the high bar to exceed, however, the good people of Parksville-Qualicum got busy with supporters of all parties backing the petition. The petition was filed, but before the signatures were counted, Reitsma read the room and resigned his seat, paying a very steep price for his shenanigans. Because of Gordon Campbell’s quick action to jettison Reitsma, the BC Liberals didn’t wear the scandal and got to work on finding a replacement.
At the mid-point of 1998, the Glen Clark government was doing very poorly in the polls. BC’s economy had gone from “first to worst” in Canada – a mantra of the BC Liberals – and the Fast Ferries were a monumental political disaster for the government. To those not familiar, the government had commissioned three fast ferries, built in BC, that never worked properly costing over a half-billion dollars. They were eventually scrapped. The business community was very riled up as well and much more vocal against the government than they are today. Into the breach went former NDP MLA Leonard Krog who held Parksville-Qualicum between 1991-96 before losing to Reitmsa. Krog was well respected locally and probably the best candidate possible for the NDP. The BC Liberals had an open nomination race (remember those?) with six or seven candidates vying to be candidate. In a packed auditorium in North Nanaimo, BC Liberal members chose shellfish farmer Judith Reid over a slew of credible candidates – a mayor, a councillor, a former president of Reform BC, a regional district director – a sign of a growing and healthy party.
Though politically inexperienced, Reid was a fresh face for the BC Liberals. She was challenged by a hard-right Reform candidate that was supported by – he’s baaaack – former Premier Bill Vander Zalm. The by-election was a long grind as the NDP waited until the last moment to call it, taking place December 14, 1998. During the campaign, Krog complained that the Glen Clark government was an “albatross around his neck”. Reid clobbered Krog 53% to 23%. It was a decisive win in a seat that the NDP had barely lost in 1996. Reform lost votes, falling further behind. The BC Liberal free enterprise train was speeding down the tracks.
One more test. In 1999, BC Liberal MLA Fred Gingell passed away after a battle with cancer. Gingell, who had served as Opposition Leader between Gordon Wilson and Gordon Campbell, was a beloved figure in the party, and its conscience on finances and fiscal policy. His riding, Delta South, was a BC Liberal stronghold under Fred and the opening drew a lot of interest. Again, the Party unleashed an open nomination process that attracted multiple candidates and throngs of voting members. Local farming fixture Val Roddick prevailed on the final ballot, though was to set upon a somewhat crazy political path as Bill Vander Zalm had, by now, assumed control of the BC Reform Party and, as a resident of Delta South, he contested the seat. BC Liberal free enterprise train? Bill Vander Zalm was prepared to stick up that train like Billy Miner and ride away with Gordon Campbell’s votes.
The by-election campaign was a tense affair as Roddick was very much the community candidate and not accustomed to Zalm’s showmanship nor the strong media interest from outside Delta. Her campaign turned its guns on the former premier’s record and made the case for moving forward, not backward. One of their ads warned against “Zalmnesia”. The BC Liberals brought in every available body and resource to get the job done and prevailed with 60% of the vote, almost double Zalm’s 33%. Between the two parties taking up 93%, there wasn’t much room for others. Though not expected to contend, the NDP government’s own candidate, Richard Tones, gained 2.44%, which may be a record for the lowest percentage every received by a government candidate in BC by-election history. By the time the by-election took place, Glen Clark had resigned, the party was in shambles, and caretaker Premier Dan Miller was in place. Credit to Tones for putting his name on the line and taking it for the team. That’s what party diehards do when things are grim.
About 18 months later, Gordon Campbell’s BC Liberals won 77 of 79 seats, and 57% of the vote, in the most lopsided win in BC electoral history. The gauntlet of free enterprise tests in the 1990s would help them to a sixteen-year run in power from 2001-2017 and the undisputed free enterprise alterative.
2011 Canary in the coal mine
Every term of government in the past 50 years, and before, has had at least one by-election take place as was the case between 2001-2005 and 2005-2009. It’s worth noting that the election of the NDP’s Jagrup Brar in Surrey-Panorama (over Mary Polak) in a 2004 by-election increased the NDP caucus by 50%, from two to three and was arguably a sign that the NDP were on the comeback trail under new leader Carole James, which she proved in the 2005 campaign. Notable about the 2008 Vancouver-Fairview by-election was the resignation not the vote. First-time NDP MLA Gregor Robertson resigned to run for mayor, starting a ten-year run at City Hall, but also removed his green sheen from Carole James’s team prior to the 2009 campaign, which is remembered as an NDP fumble on climate change.
The next real consequential by-election after the 1990s to take place was in Vancouver-Point Grey in 2011. When Christy Clark won the BC Liberal leadership, Gordon Campbell resigned his Pt. Grey seat, which he had held since 1996. It was not a ‘gimme’ though BC Liberal support had always been pretty strong there. Enter David Eby. The activist lawyer was seen initially by some as being miscast for the riding, but the results show that he effectively mobilized NDP support among renters and environmentally-minded voters while the BC Liberal base – homeowners – was a diminishing percentage of the riding.
It’s a tricky thing for a new leader coming from the outside to enter the Legislature – you need to find a dance partner. In this case, the outgoing leader’s riding was the obvious place but it wasn’t a perfect fit. Barely a month on the job as premier, Clark called the by-election for May 11th, 2011. This was a very busy time for the Christy Clark government as it was trying to find its feet, while at the same time, hoping the by-election would take care of itself. Meanwhile, David Eby was campaigning with laser focus. As the results came in on May 11th, Clark trailed for much of the night, but a 635-vote cushion in the advance polls (counted last) gave her an overall win of only 564 votes. This was a very close call and would have been a political disaster if Eby had won. Yet she won and planned to represent the riding for a good long while.
The real consequence of the 2011 Point Grey by-election is not the close call, but what it represented. BC Liberal support was draining out of the city. A shift was taking place where urban voters were increasingly going NDP while rural voters were leaving the NDP to go BC Liberal. In 2013, in the face of a dispiriting loss for the NDP province-wide, David Eby defeated Clark by over 1,000 votes in Point Grey. The BC Liberals lost four seats in Vancouver and Capital Region combined, but made them up in the suburbs and rural BC that time. By 2017, the urban shift would have deeper consequences for the BC Liberals.
2012 The Deferred Remaking of the Free Enterprise Coalition
In Christy Clark’s first year as premier, two of her MLAs resigned for greener pastures. Iain Black vacated his Port Moody seat to head the Vancouver Board of Trade and Barry Penner gave leave of his Chilliwack-Hope seat to return to resume his legal career. Neither by-election was particularly welcome as the BC Liberals knew they would be tough battles and divert much attention and resources. Adrian Dix’s NDP salivated at the opportunity.
As far as Port Moody goes, Dix shrewdly recruited former BC Liberal and Port Moody Mayor Joe Trasolini as the NDP candidate. News of Trasolini’s candidacy added another two-hundred-pound sack on to the back of the struggling BC Liberals. Meanwhile, in the ‘safe seat’ of Chilliwack-Hope, the BC Liberals recruited Laurie Throness, a former Chief of Staff to Chuck Strahl, a much-admired figure in the area. Strahl really leaned into the campaign to support Clark and Throness, no small thing as the BC Liberals worked to fend off the rising BC Conservatives led by one of Strahl’s former colleagues, John Cummins.
Throness did not have a very high profile in Chilliwack-Hope and did not bring a lot of volunteers, but he campaigned hard as one expects of a local candidate and benefited from Strahl’s backing. He refused to ‘go negative’ on his key rival, BC Conservative candidate John Martin. The BC Liberal campaign, with its back against the wall, was trying everything and wanted to throw the kitchen sink at Martin. The NDP’s Gwen O’Mahony would win the by-election with 42% of the vote, defying a natural law of BC politics – that NDPers could never win in the eastern Fraser Valley. Throness and Martin split the vote with 32% and 25% respectively. Over in Port Moody, Trasolini trampled the BC Liberal candidate Dennis Marsden (now an elected City Councillor in Coquitlam).
The news was all bad but for two glimmers. First, the BC Liberals finished ahead of the BC Conservatives in Chilliwack-Hope. It could have been worse. Third place would have been very bad indeed. Secondly, four days after the bruising by-elections, Alberta Premier Alison Redford made an improbable comeback, against the WildRose Party’s Danielle Smith of all people, to win a majority. Redford had been given up for dead by the Holy Trinity of Pollsters, Pundits, and Political Scientists. Her comeback made the idea of a Christy Clark comeback slightly more plausible.
The real difference, though, is what happened later. After the by-election in Chilliwack-Hope, Throness and Martin stayed in touch as they developed a respect for each other (recall that Throness wouldn’t go negative). As the BC Conservatives started to fall apart over the summer of 2012 (as third parties like to do), conversations started to take place about Martin coming over to the BC Liberals. Incumbent MLA John Les provided a guiding hand. When these whispers reached party HQ, a gift horse was not looked in the mouth. In September 2012, John Martin was announced as the candidate in Chilliwack, to succeed Les, and Throness would team up with him and run again in neighbouring Chilliwack-Hope. On switching parties mere months after the by-election, Martin, the master BBQ-er, quipped, “If anyone can make eating crow taste good, it’s me”.
John Martin made his move less than 6 months after the by-election
This event was a pivotal moment for the BC Liberals rebuilding the free enterprise coalition leading up to the 2013 general election. Martin and Throness would both win their seats, Clark would win the province, and the BC Conservatives were pushed back to 5% and the sidelines ever more. Over in Port Moody? Trasolini was a one-year wonder losing to BC Liberal candidate Linda Reimer. Over the longer-term, things didn’t work out as well for Martin and Throness, both losing to the NDP in 2020, who won in the eastern Fraser Valley for the first time ever in a general election. The party had considered allowing a nomination challenge to Martin but ultimately relented. Throness’s social conservative musings, which had not been much of a distraction under Clark’s leadership, burst into the general election campaign of 2020, disabling Andrew Wilkinson’s provincial campaign effort, and leading to him being removed as candidate.
2013 Back to the Cradle
Despite Christy Clark’s general election win in 2013, she lost her seat in Point Grey to David Eby. She, again, had to find her way into the Legislature through a by-election.
What might have seemed like a straightforward process, given her stunning election victory, was surprisingly tortured as it became clear that an ideal Lower Mainland seat was not going to present itself.
One MLA who did understand the importance of securing a safe seat for the premier was Westside-Kelowna MLA Ben Stewart. Clark accepted his offer to resign and entered the Legislature via a by-election from the ‘cradle of free enterprise’, forty years after Bill Bennett secured his seat there in 1973.
The consequence was the cementing of the Interior on the psyche of the government. Not that that’s a bad thing, necessarily. The Interior had rewarded the BC Liberals in the 2013 election with 18 of 24 seats. Clark felt at home there, especially in Kelowna which had a tradition of strong support for free enterprise. But the premier’s move up-country arguably contributed to the party drifting further away from the vote-rich urban areas. It may have been only a few degrees of difference, but between 2013-2017, the government was losing ground in the Lower Mainland and would pay the price on Election Day. Had Clark taken a by-election seat in the Lower Mainland instead in 2013, would it have made a difference? She lost power by the narrowest of margins, mainly on account of the party’s losses there.
As was the case when Dave Barrett ‘returned’ his seat to Bob Williams in 1984, Clark did the same for the honourable Stewart who returned to office in a 2018 by-election.
2016 Making a Mark on Indigenous representation
While it did not have any bearing on general election results, the 2016 Vancouver-Mount Pleasant by-election was notable for sending the first First Nations woman, Melanie Mark, to the BC Legislature since the province came into existence 145 years before. The by-election was fait accompli as the NDP cruised to victory with over 60% of the vote. The real ‘race’ would have been the jockeying around the nomination once long-time MLA Jenny Kwan had decided to run federally the previous year. The NDP’s decision to go with Mark made history, and one year later, she was joined in the Legislature by two additional First Nations MLAs – Ellis Ross (BC Liberal) and Adam Olsen (Green). In the history of the BC Legislature, there have only been five First Nations MLAs, with Atlin MLAs Frank Calder, serving between 1949-1979 and Larry Guno (1986-1991) preceding Mark. Mark then became the first First Nations woman to serve in Cabinet. Her by-election competitors didn’t stop after losing to Mark. Green candidate Pete Fry went on to win handily as Councillor in the 2018 City of Vancouver election, while BC Liberal Gavin Dew threw his hat into the ring for the 2022 BC Liberal leadership race.
2016 by-election winner Melanie Mark with #3 Gavin Dew and #2 Pete Fry
2019 High Stakes and High Tide
It seemed unbelievable that an NDP MLA would resign his seat when the ‘GreenDP’ advantage in the Legislature was only 44-42. Yet that’s exactly what Leonard Krog did in 2018 to run for mayor of Nanaimo.
Krog’s departure must have been a considerable headache for John Horgan’s government. If they lost the by-election, the Legislature would be deadlocked 43-43 and the likely outcome would have been an early general election in 2019 and a potential ‘own goal’ of epic proportions.
Governments winning byelections is hard. Until Christy Clark won Point Grey in 2011, it had been 30 years since a governing party had won a by-election in BC. The BC Liberals lost three held-seats under Clark in by-elections so assuming the NDP would slam dunk Nanaimo defied history to some extent.
New BC Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson was coming off a victorious referendum campaign where proportional representation was defeated. He then recruited a strong local candidate in Nanaimo, Tony Harris, whose family is very well-known in the Harbour City. Add to that that the Greens were putting up their own candidate, the daughter of the former pirate-mayor (yes), despite being in cahoots with the NDP on their confidence deal.
The NDP nominated federal MP Sheila Malcolmson who brought name recognition and local support. It was all-in for the BC Liberals who saw the by-election for the opportunity that it was.
Harris generated support and hope for the BC Liberals. On voting day, January 30, 2019, Harris delivered over 700 more votes than the previous candidate in the general election – this is rare. By-elections usually have lower turnout. Objectively, you might have expected to win it with that effort.
However, at some point in the campaign, it appeared the NDP went into a higher gear. After all, Premier Horgan is an ‘Island guy’ and NDP roots run deep there (see history of Nanaimo riding). The Green vote collapsed from 20% in the general election to 7% in the by-election. The NDP held most of their raw vote and actually increased their percentage from 46.5% to 50%. Harris increased the BC Liberal vote from 32.5% to 40% but that was little consolation. Crisis averted for the NDP.
Two weeks into the Nanaimo by-election was probably the high-water mark for Andrew Wilkinson’s leadership. When the NDP won, the optimism that was felt (falsely or otherwise) dissipated and the BC Liberals went into a rut. The mentality of forcing the NDP from office was replaced by settling in for a full-term of government. They could never regain momentum, and were pummelled in Horgan’s early election call in 2020. Credit the NDP for staring down the existential crisis that the Nanaimo by-election posed and taking care of business.
2022 Surrey South: Renewal or ?
Almost 50 years, and over 5,000 words later, we finally get to the 2022 Surrey South by-election. Where will it stack up in terms of importance compared to a half-century of political tests?
BC Liberal leader Kevin Falcon has already taken care of one tidy bit of business, which was finding a seat after a nine-year absence from the Legislature. Outgoing leader Andrew Wilkinson yielded Vancouver Quilchena, which was an easy lay-up for Falcon. Gordon Campbell entered as leader via Quilchena almost 30 years earlier.
With the resignation of BC Liberal Stephanie Cadieux, Falcon has an opportunity to bring forward new blood into the BC Liberals and is doing so with candidate Eleanore Sturko, an RCMP officer who is known for her work on LGBTQ and human rights issues. The NDP has put forward Pauline Greaves, a community educator (Ph.D) who teaches business at Langara School of Management. Greaves was a close runner-up to Cadieux in the 2020 general election, losing by a slim 4% margin. She’s playing the “I can be a strong voice inside government” card.
Surrey South is, in fact, the strongest of the nine ridings in Surrey – White Rock area for the BC Liberals. This should be a W. In 2017, Cadieux took the riding by a margin of 18%. In 2013, the BC Liberals won a majority of seats in the area before losing Panorama, Fleetwood, and Guildford in 2017 (key to the NDP taking power). In 2020, the NDP advanced further taking former stronghold Cloverdale and narrowly losing in Surrey-White Rock to BC Liberal Trevor Halford, which would have seemed inconceivable prior to the campaign. Cadieux and Halford were the last BC Liberals standing in the area until Cadieux resigned. Falcon previously represented Cloverdale, next door, between 2001-2013 and was one of the top vote getters in the province for the BC Liberals. This is political home turf for him and he and Sturko are backed by popular former mayor Dianne Watts. The BC Liberal path to power must travel through Surrey.
The by-election will take place in an interregnum between Horgan’s announcement he is leaving and the installation of a new leader and premier, likely David Eby, on December 3rd. While Horgan remains popular in the Surrey area, especially with older folks, the real enemy for Falcon and Sturko is voter turnout. By-election turnout is usually lower and a distracted and demotivated support base can lead to defeat. It’s no consolation to hear afterward, “We thought you were going to win”. In the final days of the by-election campaign, the BC Liberals have to grind away to get the vote out.
If Falcon’s BC Liberals prevail, they pass a test that they were expected to pass and get some new blood in the Legislature. It will no doubt be a positive for them.
For the NDP, a pick-up here would be very rare feat. You have to go back to 1955 when Gordon Gibson Sr., MLA for Lillooet, put his Liberal seat on the line to back up his allegations of corruption under the Socred Forest Minister of the time, Robert Sommers. Gibson lost to the governing Socreds in the by-election but he was proven right as Sommers was ultimately found guilty of corruption and went to the clink. (Gibson Sr. returned to the Legislature as a Liberal in the 1960s in a North Shore seat and his son, Gordon Gibson Jr., won a 1974 by-election in North Vancouver and contended the 1975 election as Liberal leader).
An NDP win in Surrey South would round out the Horgan era as a time where the NDP encroached deep into BC Liberal / free enterprise territory while keeping its left flank under control, and would be more about Horgan’s legacy than be a predictor of Eby’s future. Still, an NDP win here would obviously be good for them.
Another factor is the BC Conservatives who are running Richmond resident Harman Bhangu. There was no Conservative on the ballot in 2020 when Cadieux narrowly won. Will Bhangu split the vote and cost Sturko? Earlier this month, Falcon punted Nechako Lakes MLA John Rustad from caucus over his team play and musings on climate change. Rustad has now appeared in support of Bhangu. Will that make a difference? Could anyone in Surrey South pick Rustad out of a lineup?
It’s hard to know right now where Surrey South will land on the scale of significance as harbinger of political events to come. We usually don’t know until later. But there are stakes to be fought over and that will make it interesting on September 10th.
UPDATE: Nine months on from the Surrey South result, there is no apparent change in provincial election dynamics due to that by-election, but Elenore Sturko has emerged as a front bench critic for BC United. If anything, it signalled that BC United (then the BC Liberals) was able to confidently hold a relatively safe seat.
The Mt. Pleasant / Langford by-elections are the first by-election tests for Premier Eby, but they do not pose much of a threat. Governments went through a long drought of winning by-elections starting from 1981 until Sheila Malcolmson broke the curse in 2019 in Nanaimo. While safe government seats have fallen in the past, the June 24 by-elections should be fairly easy lay ups for the government as they are regarded as safe seats and the public polls suggest the government is not facing any serious political headwinds.
In Mt. Pleasant, the last three elections have produced majorities of 60%, 65%, and 67% for the NDP. In Langford-Juan de Luca, John Horgan had 68% in 2020 (a high water mark), and 53% in 2017.
There will be some analysis about percentage points but it is unlikely that they will make the list of ‘most consequential by-elections in the past 50 year’. What is noteworthy is that the NDP’s Joan Phillip will likely win and be only the second First Nations woman to be elected to the BC Legislature, following previous Mt. Pleasant MLA Melanie Mark, who was the first.
It’s one of the oddities of our parliamentary system, that someone can become premier without first facing the voters as leader in the trial by fire of an election campaign.
The pending retirement of Premier John Horgan means a new leader chosen solely by the members of the NDP will go straight to the top job.
John Horgan chairing the Council of Federation meetings, July 2022
Changing premiers has happened between elections many times and for a variety of reasons.
Retirement on their terms
Since 1903, when the party system came to B.C., only a handful of premiers retired while they still had political capital in the bank.
Richard McBride retired in 1915 after 12 years in office when his health and energies were on the wane. He left office in good standing with the voters of the day, but his successor, William Bowser, was defeated when he met voters at the polls the following year.
John Hart retired in 1947 after six years on the job, passing on the premiership to colleague “Boss” Johnson. Hart was the only ex-premier to go on to become Speaker of the Legislature. Two years later, Johnson won his own mandate.
Bill Bennett picked his moment in 1986, after the half-way point of his third term. Twelve candidates vied to replace him and, coming out of political retirement, Bill Vander Zalm prevailed and shortly marched on to his own majority win.
Passings in office
In 1918, Liberal Harlan Brewster, only two years into his first term, came down with pneumonia heading home by train from Ottawa. Sick by Winnipeg, in peril by Regina, dead in Calgary. John Oliver replaced him and served nine years, but became very ill toward the end of his tenure. His colleagues pleaded for him to stay on while the burdens of office were lifted from his shoulders, but he died in office in 1927. John Duncan McLean’s government was defeated the following year.
Premier Harlan Brewster fishing on the Peace River before his perilous train trip
The leaderless winner
The leaderless Social Credit Party went from zero seats to winning the 1952 election, with a leader who was from Alberta. Ernest Hansell, an evangelist and cartoonist, wasn’t on the ballot, but as head of the Social Credit League of Canada, he had top billing. Voters didn’t know who was going to lead the Socreds in the Legislature — and the government — until after the election. The new Socred MLAs soon met at the Hotel Vancouver and elected W.A.C. Bennett from among them. And so, a 20-year run as premier began.
WAC: Wasn’t the leader the first time, but re-elected as premier in 1953, 1956, 1960, 1963, 1966 and 1969
Unplanned retirement
Liberal Duff Pattullo had been premier since 1933, leading the province through the Great Depression, but in 1941, he was dealt a minority. He wanted to press on, but his trusted ally, John Hart, announced his support for a coalition government and won the support of the Liberal rank and file. Pattullo resigned and Hart assumed office with Conservative support just two days after the attack on Pearl Harbour. His coalition government was re-elected in 1945.
A hat trick of resignations beset B.C. politics in the 1990s.
In 1991, Bill Vander Zalm resigned in disgrace after a damning conflict of interest report. Rita Johnston, B.C.’s first female premier, succeeded him only to be demolished by Mike Harcourt’s NDP later that year.
Harcourt seemed to have a bright future ahead of him, but an NDP scandal (“Bingogate”) that had nothing to do with him bedevilled the government. Low in the polls, Harcourt quit and Glen Clark took the helm in 1996, resurrecting NDP fortunes and, shortly thereafter, eking out a narrow win.
Clark’s administration quickly sailed into rough waters and took on water — lots of it. Clark resigned in 1999 giving way to Dan Miller, who is the only premier since 1903 to serve on an interim basis and never face the voters as leader. Miller stepped down when Ujjal Dosanjh was elected by NDP members to lead them into what was to become an electoral Armageddon in 2001.
In 2010, not long after his third majority government win, and on the heels and highs of the Winter Olympics, Gordon Campbell announced his intention to resign after internal caucus dissent spilled out into the public. Christy Clark, who did not have a seat at the time, prevailed on the third ballot to be crowned premier, and went on to win her own majority mandate two years later.
Changing premiers between elections has happened for a variety of reasons, with successors having mixed results. Some are able to show change and renewal, while others were weighed down by their government’s baggage and jettisoned to the political scrap heap. In all cases, they became premier thanks to a relatively small number of people, whether it was the members of their caucus or members of their party. This time, if David Eby is acclaimed, as some expect, not even NDP members would have a say, and he would not have to undergo the trial by fire faced by predecessors Bill Vander Zalm, Glen Clark, Ujjal Dosanjh, and Christy Clark.
Straight to the Top
John Horgan came to power on a confidence vote not long after the 2017 election and retires on his own terms knowing that he had more political capital to spend. In terms of popularity, he will be a hard act to follow. Once coronated, David Eby will have close to two years to govern, but he will be staring at the calendar as to when voters ultimately get to have their say.
British Columbians went to the polls on October 17, 1991 and changed BC politics forever.
It was the election of Premier Mike Harcourt’s NDP government and only the second time in BC history that the NDP had gained power. The election was hugely significant for the NDP as they governed for a decade. But its more profound impact was the realignment of the free enterprise vote in BC.
Gordon Wilson, BC Liberal leader in 1991 breakthrough election.
The Social Credit Party had governed for 36 of the previous 39 years, mostly with a Bennett at the helm. It had renewed itself during the first NDP term of office in the 1970s and emerged stronger under WR Bennett with a broader base of support. Bennett had revived the Socred coalition by attracting Liberals, Conservatives, and even an NDP MLA to run with him in 1975. The renewed coalition was maintained for three elections (1975, 1979 and 1983) in the most polarized elections in BC history. When the Social Credit chose a new leader in 1986, they chose Bill Vander Zalm. While he led the Socreds to victory one more time, their coalition would unravel under his premiership.
Starting in the early 1980s, a small group of Liberals worked to revive the provincial wing. From virtually no candidates in 1979, they ran close to a full slate in 1983 under leader Shirley McLaughlin, with parachutes attached to many Young Liberals. They garnered about 3%. Most federal Liberals (a vanishing species at that time) were supporting the Social Credit Party.
Undaunted, Liberals held a leadership convention in 1984 where former Member of Parliament Art Lee, the first Chinese-Canadian leader of a political party in BC, defeated Stan Roberts, who would go on to help establish the Reform Party of Canada. Lee would build a strong relationship with Liberal Party of Canada leader John Turner, who represented Vancouver-Quadra, and BC’s Iona Campagnolo who was president of the Liberal Party of Canada. “A Liberal is a Liberal is a Liberal” was a mantra I heard at my first political convention in 1985, at the Empress Hotel, as a keen 16-year old.
When Bill Vander Zalm called the October 1986 election, on the heels of a very popular Expo 86, Art Lee managed to field a team of candidates in most ridings across the province. There was no TV leaders debate and little money so it was hard for Lee to make an impact. The Liberals placed their hopes on winning one seat – the Leader’s.
Bill Vander Zalm’s charisma trumped the NDP and its faltering leader, Bob Skelly, who famously fluttered at his opening press conference. The Liberals were squeezed out, but doubled their vote to about 7%. Hopes for a seat were dashed as they were shut out of the Legislature. Art Lee stepped down. On election night, BCTV cruelly reported that Art Lee was going to win his seat. Bedlam erupted at Liberal HQ in Vancouver. Out in Maple Ridge, we piled into an old black Lincoln and headed in for the ‘party’. Somewhere around the Sperling interchange, CKNW reported that someone had made an error and Art Lee was 5th! Cheers turned to tears at the Liberal election night party at the old Plaza 500. I ran into my new friend Christy Clark at the wake. We had joined the SFU Young Liberal Club that month.
Art Lee decided to move on from his unpaid, under-resourced, and under-appreciated leadership. By the time the BC Liberals got around to choosing a new leader on Hallowe’en Day 1987, there was only one candidate – Gordon Wilson. A political unknown to most, he had at least been elected to local office on the Sunshine Coast and put up a respectable showing there in the 1986 election. He was an outsider to the Vancouver-centric Liberal Party in BC. Yet he showed up and took on the mantle, though he wasn’t going to get much help from the city folk.
The focus for most Liberals in BC during that time was federal politics, with an election looming in 1988. While Wilson sought to get established, the Vander Zalm government started its meltdown with moderates fleeing. Ministers and MLAs would resign from cabinet and/or resign their seats. Around this time, a group of free enterprise supporters encouraged prominent developer Jack Poole (later the Chair of the 2010 Olympics) to take over the BC Liberal leadership as a response to the Social Credit Zalmplosion. While this is truly a story for another day, Poole would go through a due diligence effort, assisted by former leader Gordon Gibson, and organizers Colin Hansen and David McPhee, but ultimately decided not to seek the leadership. Gordon Wilson, who had reluctantly cooperated with the Poole potential candidacy, ventured forth unfettered when Poole left the scene. No one gave him much of a chance.
Wilson’s leadership in 1989 and 1990 could be described as persistent and tenacious, but also was met with setbacks. Byelection results were disappointing while the party was in a constant financial crisis. Federal politics intervened again as Jean Chretien succeeded John Turner in June 1990 after a lengthy leadership campaign. One issue where Wilson and Chretien had common ground was over the Meech Lake Accord. Wilson was as a strong critic and aligned with Manitoba Liberal leader Sharon Carstairs and Newfoundland Premier Clyde Wells on the issue. This was a very divisive issue within the Liberal Party of Canada, but Wilson made a name for himself on this issue. However, the relationship with the Chretien team would become increasingly uneasy.
I was part of a group that strongly believed that the Party should split into separate federal and provincial political parties. The “BC” Liberal Party needed to be strictly provincial and put BC first on issues. During the Turner years, the party membership did not want to make the move, in part out of respect for John Turner and his commitment to BC. By 1991, the provincial wing believed it was in their political interests, and the federal wing believed it was in its financial interests. At a convention in Spring 1991, the parties decided to split. This was a defining moment in BC political history. Had this not happened, the BC Liberal Party could not have emerged as a ‘big tent’ political party. It was hard enough to attract non-Liberals to the BC Liberal Party in the 1990s, but it would have been impossible if the provincial party was not independent.
There is no greater boost for an opposition party than an imploding government. With many Socreds absolutely ruling out going to the NDP, and some NDP voters open to a liberal option (as they would never go Socred), the opportunity presented itself. The advantage of the Liberal brand, especially once it was detached from the federal wing, was its ability to push out from the middle in both directions.
Thus, a core group of party supporters decided to give it one last push. It was felt if we couldn’t break through this time, there was no hope for the BC Liberal Party ever. We had no money and not much of an organization. But we did have a leader who was quick on his feet and would work day and night to succeed, and we started to draw some candidates that helped with credibility. There were some good recruits like Linda Reid who would become the longest serving women in BC history, business executive Fred Gingell, young pilot Gary Collins who won in Fort Langley, and author/executive David Mitchell who had some media cachet. Clive Tanner had served as an MLA in the Yukon and Val Anderson was a former party president and United Church minister who was well known to Liberals. But we had many gaps. My volunteer job was to find candidates with my pal Christy, to fill out the slate. I would find them, Christy would close them. During this time there was an epic road trip, borrowing Clive Tanner’s van, to Prince George, the Cariboo, Kamloops, and the Okanagan. We met with candidates in hot tubs, recruited mustard manufacturers, dragooned university friends like Karen Bill and Kimball Kastelen, and found the lonely Liberal outposts in places where they had been in hiding. Clive is probably still paying off the bill from his car phone, a real novelty in those days.
We ended up with candidates in 71 of 75 ridings. That was enough to argue that Gordon Wilson should be on the debate. We were shut out of the debate initially because the NDP and Socreds didn’t want us there. So we launched a protest and had picketers in front of the CBC building. The pressure built and the network capitulated. We could not have asked for a better scenario – to have to fight to get on the debate and then win the fight. I found out we had made the debate when I was in Rogers Pass recruiting a candidate. Yes, our candidate was living in Rogers Pass, at the Glacier Park Lodge. She was a wonderful candidate and did respectably in Columbia River-Revelstoke, though our local Golden Liberal wouldn’t help sign the nomination papers in public – “Someone could lose their job by signing these”.
On debate night, party president Floyd Sully invited me to go to the CBC studios with him and be part of the team with Gordon Wilson. We showed up in his dressing room. I will never forget how calm he was. He was walking around, shirt off, listening but focused – his mind was elsewhere. Very calm. He had experience as an actor, which likely helped his preparation. I’m sure we were chattering away with miscellaneous advice that was completely off point and I’m sure he disregarded it. His media aide, John Stewart, prepared for the onslaught as there was a much bigger media hoard back then. Though the media didn’t know it beforehand, Gordon Wilson would be the story of the night and the election.
We watched the debate in the dressing room while it took place down the hall with no audience. When Premier Rita Johnston and Mike Harcourt were squabbling back and forth, Wilson nailed them: “This is a classic example of why nothing ever gets done in the Province of British Columbia”. Boom! I don’t think the media realized the full impact of that line when it was delivered, but they did realize that Wilson had made an impact. We were giddy in the dressing room. Floyd and I sprinted down the hall to the studio. I remember passing Mike Harcourt in the narrow hallway backstage – “Hey, how are you,” I think he said. Disciplined, cheerful, seemingly unruffled. Rita Johnston didn’t look too happy. Wilson was surrounded in the studio. He would never turn down a media interview after begging for attention for years. We were excited.
I had had this feeling once before when I helped the Manitoba Liberals in the 1988 election – the feeling of everything coming up roses. Sharon Carstairs had won her TV debate, and rose from one seat to almost win the election, settling for 20 and preventing Gary Filmon from forming a majority. Could this be the same? It was definitely on my mind that we could get on a roll, big time. There wasn’t a lot of time left in the election either.
Floyd and I thought we should head back to Party headquarters at 210 West Broadway. The office was closed so we walked in and our six-line switchboard was lighting up like a Christmas tree. We took calls, offers of help, crazies, you name it. We had finally been noticed.
An interesting thing about the 1991 campaign was that BCTV commissioned and ran nightly polls. Then, as now, BCTV (Global) led the evening news ratings, but back then it dominated the entire news landscape as well. Anchor Tony Parsons would come on at 6pm and announce the new numbers in their daily poll and, after the debate, the Liberals spiked up. The nightly polls were a self-fulfilling prophecy. Each good poll begat higher polling numbers the next time. As we rose, the Socreds were doomed. The Socred coalition was built on winnability. It became clear within days that the Liberals would be the party that would challenge the NDP.
As we headed into Thanksgiving weekend, there was a real likelihood we could win the whole shebang. The momentum seemed unstoppable. I remember talking on the phone with Clive Tanner, who was running in Saanich North & the Island (and would win decisively). We speculated about actually forming government. At that point, Clive, who was in the bathtub, contemplated electrocuting himself.
The NDP appeared to get a grip and turned their guns on us. Glen Clark showed his fangs and attacked our platform. A hastily organized press conference where Gordon Wilson and Floyd Sully (who had run and served as Finance critic) costed our platform was necessary. Vaughn Palmer provided a dose of the first scrutiny our campaign had had. Up until the final week, no one thought we had a chance so no one cared if our plan made sense or who our candidates were. I can safely say that many of our candidates would not have survived a modern-day social media screening process.
Vaughn has been around a loooooong time
Around that time, I was driving up Kingsway in Vancouver and came across Glen Clark’s campaign office. I walked in to collect some brochures. I was greeted warmly by a receptionist (best practice) and quickly self-identified as “undecided”. I was directed to a table of brochures and within 20 seconds I had Glen Clark interrogating me. “Hey, how are you? Undecided? Want a coffee?” Here he was in a safe seat and he was working for every vote. Of course, I folded like a cheap lawn chair from Zellers. I confessed my true identity and Glen switched gears to quiz me on Floyd Sully, who he debated on finance issues. “What’s he like? He seems intense.” Etc. In any event, that gives a glimpse how hungry the NDP were.
We had come from zero to somewhere. By the time Election Day arrived, I don’t think we thought we were going to win. But I did think something would happen, but how much would happen, I didn’t know. I would have been happy with four seats. That was always our dream, to just get a toehold. It was quite something to consider our party’s dismal history, and the prevailing conventional wisdom that we had no chance, then use our eyes and ears to understand what was happening right in front of us. It was hard to believe.
In the final week of the campaign, Christy and I transitioned over to Gibsons to help the leader with his local campaign. He had to win and we were there to help. On October 17th at 8pm, we watched the first tranche of early results in Sechelt where it looked like we would be Opposition and would eclipse the Socreds. Gordon Wilson was up in Powell River taking in the results, soon to jump a plane to Vancouver to celebrate with a lot of long-suffering and delighted Liberals. By the time the votes were all tallied up, we won 17 seats and 33% of the vote. We won historically liberal seats on the North Shore and west side of Vancouver, but we also took Saanich North, Richmond, South Delta, South Surrey, most of the Fraser Valley, and Kelowna. Places where Liberals had no business winning, until then.
It was clear that it would be quite a party that night. While Wilson made his way to the celebration, a crew of us from the Sunshine Coast were taken on a chartered boat from Gibsons over to Horseshoe Bay. It was a calm, warm night, cruising on moonlit waters before everything would change.
Volunteers from West Van picked us up in station wagons and drove us to the Villa Hotel in Burnaby. It was electric. My best friend Iain, who is a big guy, was drafted to bring Wilson into the room with another big guy, Jim. Peter Gzowski would comment on CBC the next morning about the “two gorillas” that brought the skinny, bookish professor, Gordon Wilson, into the frenzy.
As I walked in, I encountered a gruff old guy named Dick Kirby who was from Oak Bay. He was the most hard-working, dedicated volunteer you would ever find. At that moment I saw everything we had accomplished on Dick’s face – a sense of elation, satisfaction, and emotion. It brought it all home to me suddenly because I knew how hard he and others had worked and the example that they had set for others. The moment has always stayed with me because it was the essence of politics as we would like it to be. When you are part of an underdog team that overcomes the odds like that, it is a really special bond. But when you add in the unselfishness of a guy like Dick Kirby, it is a joyful moment. I will never forget that.
That’s where the story should end. It’s a good story.
Euphoria doesn’t last. Hard political choices are ultimately made. Emerging parties that surprise in a 28 day writ period must evolve in order to consolidate their gains.
The BC Liberals had to decide what they wanted to be if they wanted to govern. They would go through a tough process between 1991 and 1993, when they elected Gordon Campbell to succeed Gordon Wilson. They would go through another tough process between 1993 and 1996 when they failed to win. Idealism crashed on the rocky shores of reality. They would go through a brutal five-year process from 1996 to 2001 when the heat was cranked and the NDP tanked. The NDP would wait until the fifth year of the mandate to go to the polls and the electoral buzz saw. It was a long decade and a transformative evolution for the BC Liberals.
During that time, a modern political party was built one meeting at a time, one chicken-dinner fundraiser at a time, one local parade at a time, one vote at a time. The old saying comes to mind – the worst day in government is better than the best day in opposition. The hard work paid off with the greatest election win in BC history when the BC Liberals won 77 of 79 seats in the 2001 election.
The Party changed and evolved. It became a successful, regionally-balanced, modern political party that took a big-tent approach. It was a successful vehicle for the mainstream – winning the popular vote in six consecutive elections between 1996 and 2017. The 1991 election put Liberals back into the free enterprise coalition. While some would argue they were always there during the Social Credit years, by the mid 1980s, they had withered away. The realignment put Liberals back in the centre of the coalition, and by 2001, it was becoming truly balanced with most conservatives and former Socreds signing on.
Gordon Wilson created the opportunity. Gordon Campbell built the foundation, in painstaking fashion, and cemented it as the free enterprise coalition through eight grinding years in Opposition and three successive winning elections. Christy Clark renewed it and earned her own term, tapping into the 1991 experience, knowing that conventional wisdom can be defied, that the ultimate connection for leaders is with the voters, not the intermediaries, and that believing in oneself and the team around you is essential.
Yet, time caught up with the BC Liberals. By 2017, the Party was long past its scrappy origins and frenetic early years in government. Governmentitis crept in. Baggage accumulated. The extremely narrow margin in Comox that divided power from defeat ended a remarkable era for the BC Liberals – a rise from the ashes that begun on Hallowe’en night 1987 with Gordon Wilson taking the stage as leader, and ending in Penticton in July 2017 when Christy Clark took a walk on the beach and put a cap on it. Four years in the wilderness, ten striving years in opposition, sixteen years in power and four mandates.
Ironically, in the aftermath of 2017 and 2020 elections, the BC Liberal Party’s biggest challenge is to retain and recruit Liberals. It has come full circle.
All three of those BC Liberal leaders from 1987 to 2017 – Wilson, Campbell, Clark – taught us that it’s bloody hard work to create, build, and renew.
I’m honoured to have served all three. And I’m honoured to have worked alongside those behind the headlines that made it possible. It was quite a journey that would have ended early had it not been for the remarkable results of October 17, 1991.
With Election Day looming, the Liberals and Conservatives are basically stalemated. The uncertainty of the outcome and the momentum changes are gruelling for those involved in the campaigns. I cannot help but channel my own past experiences and think of the various psychologies that must be at work in the war rooms and among grassroots supporters.
For the Liberals, about a week before the election call, they had the jaunty bounce of those who read positive poll results and gleeful reports of their opponents’ demise. The pundit/Twitter consensus dictated that a majority was to be had, that the Conservatives were “in trouble”, and that the Liberals should “go now” to “get a mandate” – all of this very enticing.
Who knows whether there were voices inside the room that expressed caution, advocated for going earlier, or later. In the days leading up to the August 15th election call, Afghanistan was careening out of control. It’s hard when you have set out a campaign plan, signalled to the world that this is your intention, then face the prospect of pulling back from your plan when the plane is almost in the air. At some moment, the Liberal campaigners must have considered whether the election call should be postponed. But the hawks prevailed.
I can relate to that. The Liberal campaign team has been through the wars. A pitch-perfect come-from-behind win in 2015, a jarring 2019 re-election effort that was preceded by the JWR / SNC Lavalin controversy, blown sideways by blackface, followed by the onslaught of COVID, social movements of “Me Too” and “Black Lives Matter”, and the sorrow unleashed by the identification of 215 unmarked graves at the Kamloops Residential School. They have collectively faced a lot of situations in elections and in government, and Afghanistan was the latest in a long list. Camaraderie, loyalty, and trust is built through tough and challenging times. Plus, let’s face it, Justin Trudeau is a political unicorn – he is a brand unto himself. Every Canadian has an opinion about him, love him or hate him, and when you have that ability to command attention, it’s very unique. The braintrust was undoubtedly confident in him, themselves, and pushed on.
Hon. Bob Rae ended up in power after a disastrous summer snap election call
We know now the Liberals did not get their campaign off to an auspicious start, facing a hotter than usual national media corps that had Afghanistan on split screen, demanding to know “Why now?” The Liberals didn’t give a good answer. Immediately, some conjured up ghosts of David Peterson’s Ontario Liberals of 1990 who called a summer election at the seemingly high heights of his powers only to suffer a humiliating and decisive defeat to Bob Rae’s NDP.
What is clear that two weeks into this campaign, the Liberals had an increasingly sticky problem. Voters were shifting, particularly in Ontario. Some excited pollsters proclaimed the Conservative “freight train” was on its way to a majority. Pretty bold. In the Liberal war room, confidence and experience could well have translated into slower reaction to events unfolding around them. However, with confidence and experience, the ability to marshal resources to turn the campaign in another direction could make for a major impact. That brings about memories about past campaigns like 2004 when Paul Martin entered the campaign period as the odds-on favourite, but was pressed hard by upstart Stephen Harper and the newly re-united Conservatives. David Herle, Martin’s campaign manager, spoke on his podcast Curse of Politics about hitting the panic button in 2004 when Liberal polling numbers dipped below 30%. The old plan was thrown into the garbage and a new plan was drawn up. Martin’s Liberals rallied, went negative, dug up some primo opposition research, and formed a minority government.
Lots of campaign lessons here. Waiting for the next edition of this campaign classic
I was involved in the B.C. election campaign in 2017 where our team was stocked with experience and had an ample supply of confidence. The start of this federal campaign was eerily familiar. A flat start followed by (speaking for myself) a slow-to-realize reckoning about what was happening. The voters were moving with their feet while our campaign heads were up in the clouds. We scrapped and fought to get back on a better footing, but every time we made a step forward, or had a plan we thought would work, we had a setback to stall us. We simply could not pull away from our competition nor could they pull away from us. Similar feeling in 1996 in B.C. where we were way ahead, then we were way behind, and caught back up to even. For the final two weeks, we could not generate momentum and neither could our competition. That feeling you are looking for is when, no matter what you do, it comes up roses, is Momentum. The campaign office buzz gets louder. Everyone is walking faster, with more urgency. Lawn signs fly out of the office. I can only imagine that the second and third weeks of this campaign were challenging for the Liberals – they didn’t have that feeling. They were imploring support, rather than receiving it.
What about the Conservatives? I have been involved in and seen campaigns where there was no faith in the campaign team, the leader, or any prospect of victory. It really comes down to a key distinction – does the campaign team and leader believe in themselves, or is the effort truly doomed?
On the eve of the election call, the Conservative campaign was roundly crapped on for running a juvenile social media ad that was a takeoff of a scene from the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. What were they up to? The political intelligentsia pounced on the perceived amateurism and a Conservative MP was compelled to call out his own national campaign team (never a good sign). Meanwhile, the video got over a million hits. Whether the Conservatives were playing 4-D chess or screwing around is beside the point. The team could have fallen apart amidst caucus and internal discord. Instead, it looks like the Wonka controversy served to reinforce the Conservative campaign’s “us against the world” mentality.
The internal infighting is often the result of insecurity and not believing in the plan as grassroots supporters are influenced by media commentary. There’s nothing that rankled me more than to hear defeatists. “We should try to save our core seats” was a common refrain. My uncle, a WWII veteran, not to mention a candidate for Pearson in ’65, talked about those who got “hemorrhoids on their way to Halifax”, meaning some people weren’t really up for a fight. Or you hear complaints about the campaign team not being up to the job. In fact, I read about my job performance in the Vancouver Sun one day: “some Liberals must be wondering whether McDonald is over his head in this campaign”. I’m sure the columnist had been hearing from a few Schadenfreudians. There’s a lot of them when you’re losing, but they are hard to find when you win.
Yes, you gotta be audacious to win
You gotta ignore the whispers, even when they’re loud, because battle-scarred politicos know that anything is possible. If you have been around long enough, you have seen it happen. I was part of efforts that were more like comets than campaigns – Sharon Carstairs’ Manitoba breakthrough in 1988, Gordon Wilson taking the B.C. Liberals from obscurity to Official Opposition, and watched from afar as Justin Trudeau went from third to first in 2015, and, last month, Nova Scotia’s PC’s taking power after being leagues under water months earlier. Conventional wisdom is often wrong. How many more times does that need to be proven? Most pundits and media experts play it safe. They stick to the consensus. Smart politicos understand and have a pulse for voters and know that they can move quickly, decisively, and sometimes imperceptibly, especially during the writ period. Erin O’Toole and his campaign team likely believed, and likely still do, that they could win. Smaller parties, like the NDP, the Greens, and the Peoples Party cling to the hope of anything is possible as well. Need I say it? Campaigns Matter!
As the campaign moved through its first week, the Conservatives would have been feeling good. They launched successfully, including a smooth platform unveiling. While the Liberals stumbled, Erin O’Toole had a clear path to introduce himself to Canadians. The Conservatives were doing some things differently – the platform, charting a path for middle ground, and communicating and touring in a new way. Likely, they were feeling, “Our plan is starting to work.” They were probably feeling that on the ground too. As the first week rolled into the next, the public polling numbers were creating an environment that Conservative prospects were being taken more seriously, which made the Liberal call of the election a bigger story. Had Justin blown it? A nice run of momentum started to unfold that must have felt like uncharted territory. Who knows what Conservative internal polling numbers showed, but public poll numbers are avidly read by grassroots supporters and the 99% of headquarters staff that don’t see the closely guarded internal tracking. Things were looking up! The Conservative inside voice: “Do we dare to dream? Are we allowed to have nice things?”
Many campaigns go through phases, which makes sense. As one party gets the upper hand, the main rival normally does everything in its power to push back. In situations where a government has been in power for a long time, it’s harder for an incumbent government to push back when ‘time for a change’ is in the air. It has to be compelling. As much as the national media has its inherent biases, they like a big story more. Justin Trudeau blowing the election is a big story. An exciting horse race is a bigger story than a dull pre-determined outcome, like the Chrétien re-elections in 1997 and 2000. With Conservatives on the rise, and Liberals on the ropes, what’s gonna happen next? Is this the end of Justin, or will he prevail again? Stay tuned for more!
The Liberals have amped up the attacks and found one that seemed to hurt – on guns. Frankly, I’m not even sure of the details of the issue. All I heard was that the Conservatives had a policy, and they flip-flopped mid-campaign. That is never a good idea. It’s a tough spot – they likely felt they were taking water in urban and suburban ridings that they targeted for victory in the GTHA and Metro Vancouver, and among attainable younger and female voters. They must have come to believe that they could not persevere with the current policy so decided to course-correct. One wonders how that decision was made, on what timeline, and who was in the room? Was it decided by ‘committee’, were they forced by candidates threatening to speak out, was it a Leader directive? Whatever the case, it created a new problem – a perception that the Leader is a flip-flopper when under pressure. They may have believed their plan would work and talked themselves into it, perhaps without getting an outside read on it. Whether or not voters even care about the gun issue or how the Conservatives responded, it will be having an effect on the Liberal war room by putting wind in their sails, and on the Conservatives who may have the sinking feeling that they were outfoxed by the Liberals on an attack that they had to know was coming. They should have been able see that big red missile from one coast to the other.
In 2013, the BC Liberal campaign seized on a mid-campaign flip flop by the NDP leader. Similarly, it was an issue that everyone could see coming but the NDP tried to finesse it. The narrative became not that issue – oil pipelines – but leadership. The leader was a weathervane.
We are at that point now in this election where it’s truly up for grabs – everyone knows it – with the final French language debate followed by the lone English language debate. By the time the leaders walk off the stage on Thursday night, it’s a ten-day sprint to final voting day.
The debates are high stakes. My first campaign in 1984 was as a lowly, yet devoted young Liberal in no-hope riding. John Turner was a very admirable leader with an impeccable record of public service. Yet, he took on the leadership at the tail end of an almost-uninterrupted 21-year run of Liberal government- and he was rusty. In that year’s election debate, Brian Mulroney delivered a devastating critique of Liberal patronage appointments. The election was over that night, though it limped on for weeks. In 1988, the rematch debate delivered a different thunderbolt when Turner delivered a passionate, patriotic attack on Mulroney over Free Trade. The effect was immediate and the Liberals rocketed to the top of the polls after starting the campaign in third and withstanding an attempted leadership coup. However, Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives had time on their side and wheeled against the Liberals with a furious negative onslaught, prevailing on election night.
Rt.Hon. John Turner, R.I.P. – 1 for 2 in debates
In 1991, I attended the B.C. Leaders debate as part of a motley crew of Liberal campaign volunteers. Leader Gordon Wilson strutted around the small CBC dressing room, bare chested, focusing on his breathing exercises, and astutely disregarding the scattershot advice being tossed at him by me and others. He knew what he had to, and he delivered the most memorable line in B.C. election debate history. That debate blew up the campaign and led to the end of the Social Credit Party. I was learning early in my political life that debates matter and how they could turn the psychology of campaigns upside down.
I never had fun watching a debate after 1991. Henceforth, my party was expected to win and no longer a plucky insurgent. Debates brought stress – even when I had nothing to do with the preparation. I could barely watch. When things went well, we cheered, and when things didn’t go well, we rationalized that it wasn’t a big deal, but sometimes you had those “uh oh” moments. Thinking back to provincial debates over the years, I don’t recall many dramatic moments – I just remember a lot of careful preparation undertaken by the debate teams and the pressure on the leaders.
When I directed the 2013 BC Liberal campaign, I had little to do with debate prep. It was not my strength and certainly not my happy place. We had a great team of advisors that thought through the content, the camera angles, and how best to rehearse. But I do remember watching the debate and feeling good and feeling proud of our team and our leader, Christy Clark. It was exactly how you want to feel at a seminal moment of the campaign. Then what followed was that feeling of momentum, not just in my bones, but in our nightly tracking. The debate was a big factor in our ultimate success.
Debate night must be a moment aspiring leaders imagine for years. Other than election night, it is probably the most exciting moment of the campaign, especially when there are fireworks. This is Justin Trudeau’s third election, and Jagmeet Singh’s second. Erin O’Toole is the newcomer. Their relative experience in debates will flow into their leaders’ teams. How to protect against over-confidence? How to build up under-confidence? How to get the leaders in ‘the zone’? And uncluttered. A common problem with leaders is that they are over-scheduled. Have their teams found the right balance to let the Leaders rest, think and prepare, amidst a frenzied election campaign? Have they settled on their final debate strategy or are they spitballing until the stage lights turn on?
The Destiny of Canada is at stake… it is an epic contest for the future of Canada
The French language debates are over and on English language debate night, thousands of campaign volunteers will be watching every moment and the psychology of their respective campaigns will be impacted by how they feel their leaders performed. In fact, the campaigns will tell their volunteers how their leader performed. “We won!”. Polls will be generated to show they won. A furious spin war will be waged with edicts to grassroots supporters to share, tweet, Instagram, TikTok, phone, doorknock, and telepathically transmit that their leader won the debate.
That’s where this story ends for now. The final ten days will be a roller coaster ride for all campaigns. Their hopes are invested in their leaders and in themselves. At the centre of it all is two campaign war rooms that are vying to govern. The Liberal team, is no doubt, facing the Conservative challenge squarely in the eyes now, and drawing upon its collective experience and confidence in order to prevail, while exhorting supporters to stay true and steady in order to beat off the surprising Conservative challenge. The Conservative team is thirsty for a win, yearning for its taste from the goblet of victory, made sweeter by the doubters, while keeping at bay the nagging feeling, nurtured by past defeats, that it could fall out of their grasp just when it seemed victory was so close.
B.C.’s electoral boundaries are about to be redrawn, increasing the size of the legislature yet again, while eroding representation in rural areas outside the faster-growing major cities. It’s a losing formula that causes continued bloat in the size of the legislature, while failing those in small communities around the province.
Representation in BC: Let’s take time to think about this
There are two issues at play and, if we untangle them, there is a better solution for the Electoral Boundaries Commission to consider:
• Rural ridings need strong representation. Rural MLAs have multitudes of small communities located far apart, and many have large Indigenous populations. The riding of Fraser-Nicola, for example, has dozens of small communities and First Nations, compared to where I live in Vancouver-Fairview, which is one of 11 ridings in the City of Vancouver. The demands are very different on rural MLAs, and few would argue that the role of rural MLAs should be made harder.
• Representation by population. Rep-by-pop in B.C. was strengthened through the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act in the 1980s, precipitated by the Dixon case that put the focus on voter equality. At the time, some ridings were 12 to 16 times larger than other ridings. Because of urban growth, pure rep-by-pop in our system today would either dramatically increase the geographic size of rural ridings, or dramatically increase the size of the legislature, way beyond the proposed increase to 93.
How do we reconcile these mutually exclusive goals?
Let’s do something we are already doing in regional districts and weight the votes of our MLAs. In Metro Vancouver, for example, the mayor of Belcarra gets one vote at the regional district table, but the mayor of Vancouver gets five votes. Elected officials in all of Metro Vancouver’s local jurisdictions have weighted votes based on the population of their community, as they do in other regional districts across B.C. It works fine — the larger centres have clout to reflect their size, and the smaller communities get a voice and are at the table.
Provincially, we can do something much simpler than the regional district formula by having one vote for MLAs from rural ridings in regions like the North, Kootenays and North Island, and two votes for MLAs in urban regions like the Lower Mainland and the Capital Region of greater Victoria.
It would allow for sensibly drawn one-vote rural ridings that allow for fair, effective representation.
In urban B.C., we would not need to increase the number of ridings, as each urban MLA would have two votes, because they would represent roughly twice as many constituents than a rural riding.
The outcome of votes in the legislature would better reflect the population, while rural ridings would get better representation, since their MLA could focus on a smaller number of communities.
While rural ridings would lose their percentage share of seats in the legislature, they would be a higher percentage of the people in the legislature, providing them more opportunities for representation on committees, leadership roles, and in cabinet.
An important consideration is First Nations representation. The Dixon case led to the elimination of the Atlin riding in northwest B.C., which had a majority population of First Nations people. It elected the first First Nations MLA, Frank Calder, in 1949, and was represented by a First Nations MLA for 35 of 42 years until 1991.
After Atlin was eliminated, there was not a First Nations MLA elected until 2016. Protecting rural ridings provides more opportunities for First Nations representation in the legislature.
A weighted legislature, as outlined, is not proportional representation or other schemes that have failed over the years. Each voter would vote for one MLA. It also would not impact who wins elections. The votes are in the Lower Mainland, and that is not going to change. A winning political party needs to win there.
Cranking up the number of seats in the legislature is a losing game of math. It’s time to face the issue and find a way to both provide rep-by-pop and protect rural ridings.
Let the new Electoral Boundaries Commission explore weighted votes, a more inclusive solution for the benefit of all British Columbians. Then we will see if this idea floats or sinks under the weight of its own weighting.
(Thanks to Henry Waatainen for his editing help and advice)
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The op-ed above has its roots in a submission I made to the Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform in 2004. At that time, I put forward the idea of regional weighting to address rural representation, among other proposals. I worked in the Gordon Campbell government from 2001 to 2003 when the BC Liberals held an overwhelming number of seats – 77 of 79. As Director of Communications to the Government Caucus, I worked alongside practically every MLA in the House and gained an understanding of their jobs. We supported their constituency communications and it was apparent how rural MLAs had considerably more burdens placed on them than urban MLAs when it came to local accountability and expectations. Having followed the boundaries process closely over the years from the beginning of the post-Dixon case processes – the Fisher Commission and the Wood Commission for starters – the challenge of reconciling rural representation with urban growth was a thorny issue already by 2004. The size of the Legislature had grown from 57 seats in 1986 to 79 seats in 2001 (and now we are heading to 93). So, I made my modest pitch to consider a weighted formula. It was met with slow claps and deafening applause and so it returned to the dusty shelves of my brain for 17 years.
In addition to regional weighting, I also proposed a return to an Alternative Vote. This is the system used in 1952 and 1953 in BC, and in fact is used in party leadership selections and candidate nomination meetings. You vote once, but you rank your 1st, 2nd, 3rd (or more) choices, depending on how many candidates. The winner is the one who gets a majority. Essentially, this is how the Socreds improbably came to power in 1952 by climbing the ladder in the second and third counts, usurping the CCF who would have otherwise had the plurality of seats. WAC Bennett did away with the system following the 1953 election. Since 2004, I’ve lost a little bit of my enthusiasm for this system, but I’m still open to it. The benefit is that you can vote with your heart on the first choice and your head with the second. The upstart, little parties can get first votes without threat of vote splitting. And the least-opposed candidate should win in the end. The downside is that it can be a gang-up against the incumbent government, and it can oxygenate fringe parties that can be destructive. However, that’s democracy and an AAV system is not as rewarding to fringe parties as proportional representation.
Finally, I proposed to the Citizens Assembly that non-voting seats should be considered for leaders of un-represented parties that received a minimum percentage of the popular vote, but did not gain a seat. If, say, 10% of British Columbians vote for a party and do not return an MLA, why not provide an opportunity for that party to at least be heard on the floor of the Legislature? They could be provided rights to speak, move motions, and have many of the privileges of MLAs… except vote.
The idea of non-voting representatives is not a new one. The US House of Representatives has six non-voting members – from the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands. The delegate from the Virigin Islands, Stacey Plaskett, was an Impeachment Manager earlier this year.
Taking the idea of non-voting members a bit further, in 2004, I proposed seats on the floor for Indigenous British Columbians. Again, this is not a new idea. The State of Maine historically had representation in its Assembly for the Penobscot Nation and Passamaquoddy Tribe, dating back to the early 1800s, though in recent years, their representation was withdrawn.
The Cherokee Nation asserts that it has treaty rights entitling it to a Delegate to the US Congress. As well, the Choctaw Nation has rights stemming from an 1830 Treaty, but requires Congress to seat their delegate (it’s never happened). These are interesting examples that should challenge us to consider how our Legislative Assembly can include more voices. It does not require departing from the principle of elected members, represented by the people, having the final say. But, I believe, there can be room for more inclusivity in terms of voices.
Should BC consider Indigenous representation on the floor of the House? My 2004 submission was influenced by the work of trail-blazing Member of Parliament and Senator Len Marchand. Len was a great man who fought hard for Indigenous representation. He was the first First Nations MP elected in BC history, in 1968. The fact that Jody Wilson-Raybould was only the second, elected in 2015, goes to show how difficult it has been for Indigenous people to attain elected office. I wrote about this in my blog in 2015, after JWR’s election. In the 1980s, Len advocated for guaranteed representation for Indigenous peoples. His argument, as I recall, was that there should be as many Indigenous voting seats as population warrants. At the time, it amounted to about 9 seats (3% * about 300 seats), but would be more today. My 2004 proposal was more modest and attached itself to US-style non-voting seats. Since then, there are now three First Nations MLAs in the Legislature, but that shouldn’t be any reason to be complacent. Until Melanie Mark’s election in 2016, there had only been two First Nations MLAs in BC history – Frank Calder and Larry Guno – and they were both elected in the now-extinct riding of Atlin. I would like to see more First Nations elected at riding level, and I think my 2021 proposal on rural ridings will help that to some extent. In terms of non-voting seats on the floor, I would leave that entirely to the opinion of Indigenous leaders as to whether they thought the idea had merit or not. (And by the way, I recommend the biographies of both Len Marchand and Frank Calder).
With reference to the Citizens Assembly above, for those who aren’t aware, or had forgotten, it was an initiative of the Gordon Campbell government to consider options as to how BC governs itself. Former BC Liberal leader and respected commentator Gordon Gibson was appointed to develop recommendations on how such an Assembly could be structured. Two people, a man and a woman, from each of BC’s then-79 ridings were selected basically at random, plus two Indigenous members, and finally, the chair of the Assembly, Jack Blaney, who was appointed by the government. It had a brilliant staff including Dr. Ken Carty and reformed journalist Don MacLachlan. The Assembly members toured BC and heard from citizens like myself who had ideas about how BC should be represented. They produced recommendations and a report that was submitted to the Legislature, and their recommendations were put to referendum in 2005. The Campbell government required a threshold of 60% of the vote with a majority in 60% of the ridings.
While the Citizens Assembly did not take my advice, they did develop recommendations that were supported by its members. I appreciated the opportunity to have my say. In the end, their proposal, complicated as it was, almost succeeded, winning majority support in 77 of 79 constituencies but falling short of the 60% support required. Elections BC report is here. A similar proposal was put to province-wide referendum again in 2009, but failed by a wider margin. A government-driven proposal for proportional representation failed recently by referendum, in 2018. I wrote about my opposition to that proposal here.
As for the current Electoral Boundaries process, we’ll see what happens. More to say on that later.
Rosedeer 