Laurie Throness: There was a political earthquake in BC today

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Former BC MLA Laurie Throness

There was a political earthquake in BC today. MLA Bruce Banman switched from the BC United to the BC Conservative Party. Now there are two BC Conservatives in the Legislature, giving them all the privileges of Party status, including funding.

Banman is a cagey political operator. I thought of him as a long-shot for Abbotsford South's BC Liberal nomination in 2020, but he pulled it off.  Now he senses defeat for BC United, and opportunity on the right.

Free enterprisers in BC have always depended on the unity of conservatives and liberals to win the province. That unity is now obviously defunct and, barring some kind of political miracle, signals a disastrous defeat for free enterprise in next year's provincial election.

This is a uniquely difficult situation for BC United leader Kevin Falcon, who ejected a conservative from his ranks and thus broke the cardinal rule of BC politics:  liberals and conservatives must remain in the same tent to win.

But unity is hard. To win the province, he also must win in Vancouver, so he designed to tilt toward woke NDP social policies, just as Justin Trudeau lurched leftward and stole the NDP's turf.  

But the shift by BC United turns off small-c conservatives in the Party, who comprise, I was once told, about 60% of the BC United membership. 

Moreover, the BC NDP are currently in a unique position of strength, with 57 seats. They're not likely to be threatened in their urban strongholds by a divided centre-right.

So what's ahead? Look for four things:

1) Look for the BC Conservatives to ride the coattails of the growing national popularity of the federal Conservative Party - just as the federal Liberals sink in the polls.

2) Look for BC Conservatives to come up with some high profile candidates

3) Look for a number of BC United MLAs in conservative ridings to announce they're not running again.

4) Look for another defection.  Politics is about survival, and MLAs in small-c conservative riding's must now be thinking about their future. That means Northern BC, the Okanagan, some ridings in the Fraser Valley. Just one more MLA crossing the floor would throw BC United into confusion.

And finally, watch the NDP sit back and savour a train wreck in slow motion.

Incidentally, Bruce Banman was the only sitting MLA to risk being seen with me in public after I lost the election in 2020. He bought me lunch.

I appreciated that.

Laurie Throness

Laurie Throness is a former BC Member of the Legislative Assembly

Prior to his election to the Legislature, Laurie served federal and provincial politicians. In 1984, Laurie began as executive assistant to former local MLA Harvey Schroeder, then Minister of Agriculture in the Social Credit government. In 1994, Laurie accepted a position with Reform MP Chuck Strahl in his first term in Ottawa. Laurie then joined the Opposition Leader's office, providing policy research and advice to three opposition leaders – Preston Manning, Stockwell Day, and Stephen Harper. Following the election of a Conservative government in Ottawa in 2006, Laurie served as Chief of Staff to Minister Chuck Strahl in the Agriculture, Aboriginal Affairs, and Transport departments.

Laurie is a supporter of continuing education and lifelong learning. A graduate of Canadian Bible College in Regina with a degree in biblical studies, Laurie later went on to earn a degree in history from Waterloo University and a master's degree in public administration from Queen's University. In 2002, Laurie pursued a PhD in history at Cambridge University in the UK, and wrote a book (published in October 2008) about the history of our penitentiary (prison) system.