Internal issues at the BC Conservative Party

Posted October 18, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: Other Parties

A person writing in as Barry E Chilton (assuming the comment is authentic, is the former leader of the BC Conservative Party) wrote a comment in a previous post about how he alleges that the current leader, Wilf Hanni, is not really the legal leader.

This was generally covered in a September 4, 2008 Globe and Mail article.

Nobody other than BC Liberals benefit from this internal conflict - as the BC Conservative Party, just strictly on name branding, could have caused some electoral damage in the interior BC ridings.

The federal Conservatives should also pay attention to this as there is a sizable portion of the population that don’t distinguish between the provincial Liberal/Conservative parties and the federal counterparts. It is quite obvious that the BC Liberal party has taken explicit steps to de-couple themselves from the federal Liberals, while the federal Conservatives would no doubt want to be light years away from the BC Conservative party in association.

Still, the BC Liberals are likely to take some collateral damage from the federal Liberal’s plummeting support in British Columbia. One at the BC Liberal party would hope that it wasn’t the BC Liberal party causing the federal Liberals to drop!

(Subsequent update: More comments are there on that post - it’s pretty clear it will take a court case to resolve this one way or another).

2 Comments

Marc Emery running again

Posted August 27, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: By-Election, Other Parties

Thanks to BJ again for pointing out that Marc Emery, marijuana king of BC, is running for Vancouver-Fairview (and the Vancouver Mayor’s race).

His platform is surprisingly sharp, and overlaps the traditional left-wing/right-wing territory. An example is the following from his platform:

- BC Place would be demolished and sold to provide high-density housing. BC Place is in use usually fewer than 5 days a month.

- The Whitecaps Soccer Stadium on the railroad lands by Canada Place would get a green light to proceed. This is an outstanding private money project to put a multi-use sports stadium on the waterfront. Currently this project is not happening because of pressure for these same lands by the Port of Vancouver

…

- The cost of gasoline, exacerbated by the BC Liberal Carbon Tax and provincial gasoline taxes, rises while this resource is produced within Canada. You and I pay the same price for gasoline as if it were imported from the Middle East or Venezuela. Yet in Venezuela, the cost of gasoline is 16 cents Canadian a liter vs. $1.35 for a liter of the same gasoline in Vancouver. In both cases the gasoline is domestically produced, but the exorbitant cost to the citizen in Vancouver is due to rapacious taxation. Even Canadian gasoline sold in the United States is $1 a liter, and they import it, of course. Government is screwing us.

I notice he avoids using the catchphrases “affordable housing” and he discusses the price of gasoline in terms that are not associated with the traditional “the oil companies are raping us” terms.

The NDP would be wise to pay attention to the points of his platform - some of Marc Emery’s points makes a lot more sense than what the NDP are currently standing for.

No Comment Yet

Wilf Hanni runs in Vancouver-Fairview

Posted August 26, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: By-Election, Other Parties

One more combatant to the Vancouver-Fairview by-election is BC Conservative party leader Wilf Hanni, who announced a few days ago that he is planning to run in the by-election.

This is a rather interesting development, as the BC Conservative party is to the BC Liberal party as the Green party is to the NDP - with slim chances of taking seats, but seen as “taking votes away” from their ideologically closest party.

This is not the first time that a minor party leader has run in a by-election - Adriane Carr, former leader of the BC Green Party, ran in the 2004 Surrey-Panorama Ridge by-election, gathering 8.4% of the vote, slightly worse than the 8.8% the Green candidate performed in 2001. Note that the 2001 election results are not directly compatible due to the nature of that election.

My initial ballpark estimate is if Wilf Hanni receives more than 3-4% of the vote, there is good reason for the BC Liberals to be concerned in the May 2009 election due to potential vote splitting. It is more unlikely for a BC Conservative voter to swing to the NDP than it is for a Green party voter to swing to the BC Liberals.

Federally, Vancouver-Fairview is not situated in traditionally Conservative territory - it is the southern chunk of Vancouver Centre, plus a bit of Vancouver Quadra, Vancouver Kingsway and a small slice of Vancouver East. All of the polls (except one just south of Vanier Park) did not have a majority (federal) Conservative vote in the 2006 federal election.

13 Comments