If ever there was a story that needed the words "More to come" at the end of it, that story was the bombshell announcement on Aug. 28 that the BC United Party — formerly the BC Liberal Party, currently the opposition party, and soon to be the "where are they now?" party — was suspending its campaign in this year's provincial election and throwing its support behind the Conservative Party of BC.
It would be more accurate, perhaps, to say that BCU leader Kevin Falcon was doing all this, since the news seems to have taken everyone in his party not named Kevin Falcon by surprise (one BCU candidate found out while he was doorknocking, and the householder who answered the door told him). The announcement didn't so much come out of left field as come out of another dimension of space and time, one in which Falcon had not spent the last few months slagging off the BC Conservatives to anyone within earshot, rejecting with every fibre of his being the possibility of the two parties calling a truce, and stopping just short of saying that if BC Conservative leader John Rustad became premier it would be a disaster of Biblical proportions for B.C.
Yet there Falcon was, on Aug. 28, showering Rustad and the BC Conservatives with fulsome praise even as he threw his own caucus and candidates — as well as some BC Conservative candidates — under the bus (more on them in a moment). Until that very morning he had still been badmouthing Rustad, whom Falcon had turfed from what was then the BC Liberal Party because of Rustad's views on climate change. Rustad took his bat and ball and crossed the floor to take charge of the Conservative Party of BC, which he did by virtue of being the only MLA representing that party.
He was joined by another disaffected BC United MLA, Bruce Banman, and suddenly the BC Conservatives — which had last governed the province back in 1928 — were back, baby! The trickle of defections from BC United became . . . if not a flood, then at least a heavy rainfall, with three more BCU MLAs crossing the floor between May and July of this year. The Conservatives were polling higher and higher, while United sank lower and lower, probably thanks in large part to the disastrous decision to change their name from BC Liberals in the first place.
Remind me whose decision that name change was . . . Oh yes, Kevin Falcon's. The same man who arguably started this whole mess by booting Rustad in the first place, thus ignoring the adage about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer. The same man who, earlier this year, categorically ruled out the possibility of any kind of alliance between the two parties.
Want to know what it's like to eat a heaping helping of crow (with a side order of egg-on-the-face), followed by a large slice of humble pie, live on TV? Ask Kevin Falcon. Want to see someone trying very hard not to look like the living embodiment of schadenfreude? Watch Rustad while he stands behind Falcon.
And all those candidates from both parties still waiting for a tow truck to get that bus off them? There are more than 50 ridings which have both United and Conservative candidates, and in each of these ridings one will have to make way for the other to run under the Conservative banner. Neither Falcon nor Rustad could answer how this was going to work, which shrieked of lack of planning, foresight, or basic good grace, and called to mind a great British phrase to describe incompetence: "Couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery."
So there you have it: arguably the greatest shake-up in B.C. political history, announced out of the blue before a long weekend and leaving in its wake an awful lot of questions but precious few answers. What happens next? There's a lot more to come.
