United they stood, but divided they fell. BC United’s 57-person roster of candidates and incumbents was consigned mostly to the political scrap heap Tuesday, after Conservative Leader John Rustad picked his way through the party’s roster of abandoned candidates and drafted only a small number to his election team.
Rustad turned his nose up at most of the United candidates available to him, meaning they will have to retire or run as independents. A few United members had already quickly pulled the ripcord on their careers to avoid the humiliation of not getting picked.
When the dust settled Tuesday, Rustad selected only seven United members — three MLAs and four first-time candidates.
A couple more may be waiting in the wings for the days ahead. But United will be lucky if it sees 10 people, total, get chosen by the Conservatives. Out of 57.
That’s certainly not what United members thought was going to happen last week when leader Kevin Falcon told them about the Conservative deal — though, to be fair, they didn’t hear the plan in much detail because Falcon only delivered it after it leaked in the media and mere minutes before he went on stage to announce it publicly.
“In co-operation with John Rustad, we will work together to assemble the best possible team of MLAs and candidates to serve the best interests of British Columbians,” Falcon said.
“It is a process that will take some weeks.”
It actually took six days. And it wasn’t so much a work of togetherness as it was a series of ultimatums by the Conservatives. The end result is clear to all: Falcon didn’t save his party, he led it to slaughter.
Three of United’s 10 sitting MLAs were drafted by the Conservatives, including Ian Paton in Delta South, Peter Milobar in Kamloops Centre and Trevor Halford in Surrey-White Rock.
Milobar and Halford had to fight, cajole, arm-twist, and plead to retain their ridings. The Conservatives would have preferred to move them elsewhere, thereby displacing fewer loyal candidates.
In both cases, the negotiations were on-and-off for days. For Milobar, an enormous amount of energy was expended trying to get existing Conservative candidate Dennis Giesbrecht to move to Vernon-Lumby. For Halford, folks like Falcon and former Surrey mayor Dianne Watts cashed in their capital to save him.
Paton was an easy move, given the Conservatives had yet to run anyone against him. But he admitted he was surprised so few other United candidates were selected.
“I’m honoured that I’ve been asked, and I think that’s fantastic,” Paton told me.
“But I talked to John Rustad and I said, ‘Look, do me one favour and really please consider some of our candidates up north, in Quesnel, Fort St. John, Dawson Creek, Cranbrook.’
“And it just didn’t really happen. So I think BC United has really taken the brunt of the concessions, as far as people switching spots to run in this election.”
BC United’s Jackie Tegart chose to retire as the MLA for Fraser-Nicola. After three terms, and more than a decade in politics, she said she’s still reeling at how quickly it all came crashing down last week.
“To have this happen at this late date, and try to figure out what it all meant was pretty stunning,” she said.
“I had lots of encouragement to run independently, but I also think in the discussions we came around to, we need to think about the province as a whole.”
The rest of the United caucus has, basically, been scattered to the wind. Some retired. Some are mulling independent bids. Some haven’t decided.
It’s not clear yet if the Conservatives took advantage of the political cover the merger provided to cleanse their ranks of conspiracy theorists, malcontents and extremists.
The party did eject Prince George-Mackenzie candidate Rachael Weber (she of genocidal 5G wireless networks and biblical warnings about the rapture) in favour of United’s Kiel Giddens.
But the BC NDP are having a field day with a litany of sexist comments of Bryan Breguet, the Conservative candidate for Vancouver-Langara, who remains in the mix. And while United handed over its opposition research file on whacky Conservative candidates, you better believe the NDP research team has an even bigger one just waiting in the wings.
Rustad was ultimately limited by internal politics on how many United members he could adopt. His party board, executive and membership base would not allow too much movement. Those candidates he did bump, like Weber, immediately turned around and accused him of watering down the party to some sort of liberal organization.
"I want to re-assure people that the Conservative Party of B.C. is not changing who we are,” Rustad told Black Press on Tuesday. “We will continue to stand on our principles. We will continue to stand on the values we have been running for all along.”
“Politics can be strange,” Rustad added.
“And a week can be a long time in politics.”
On that he is correct. It took less than a week to dismantle the once-mighty United party and bury it in B.C.’s political graveyard. Who knows what the next week will bring.
Rob Shaw has spent more than 16 years covering B.C. politics, now reporting for CHEK News and writing for Glacier Media. He is the co-author of the national bestselling book A Matter of Confidence, host of the weekly podcast Political Capital, and a regular guest on CBC Radio.
