The Writ Podcast - Ep. #132: B.C.'s election bombshell

hey everybody Eric grer and welcome to this special episode of the RIT podcast the 132nd episode I'm joined today by Richard zusman of global news this is actually the second time we've spoken today we recorded a a podcast about BC politics this morning turned out to be a bad idea because uh everything changed today uh Richard thanks for doing this thanks for doing this again why don't you tell us what happened today well I was supposed to be on vacation in Prince rer British Columbia but in political reporting Eric as you know never take a vacation especially in an election year so Kevin Falcon still the BC United leader announced that he was not going to run in the next election that he was not going to allow anyone to run under the BC United banner and is encouraging all of his supporters to vote conservative he is encouraging some of his candidates to tell the conservatives they are interested in running and the conservatives are going to do a revetting process and potentially take on some of these candidates and have a unified Force against David Eevee and the NDP come election day on October 19th uh they don't have a lot of time to do this the red drops what on the 19th of September it is August 28th when we recording this today this seems like really really late in the game to make such a huge change September 21st is Rett October 19th is election day we are incredibly close to that and we have had these conversations Eric for months the last time I was on the podcast they were in the midst of these conversations and when you look at polls you could see what was happening the BC conservatives and the BC NDP were solidifying one and two with the NDP and first the conservatives in second in most polls and BC United was way back between anywhere from 9% to 11 or 12% but Kevin Falcon was insistent time and time again that when we got into that 28 day campaign cycle he was going to be able to convince conservative voters that he was the best option to form Premier that he had the experience in cabinet that he had the organization and most importantly he had the more mainstream viewpoints there are a lot of problematic conservative candidates but Falcon ultimately made the decision today that that wasn't the case that there was no hope for BC United it is so crazy to me Eric just a few weeks ago they fired their campaign team hired a new campaign team they found new candidates some of them going on leaves from jobs to take on this opportunity Falcon did this without consulting with his caucus without consulting with his staff unilaterally made this decision and it's leaving a significant mess you know there is a reputation out here that anything can happen in BC politics and this is as wild as I've ever seen it that so close to an election one party B basically just concedes and he's walking away from a dynasty the BC liberals represented government for 16 years in this province they still have a significant infrastructure and that dynasty is now over the party of Gordon Campbell the party of Christie Clark party of Andrew Wilkinson and then Kevin Falcon even though it's a name change they're now over it's gone it's over it's incredible I was looking at it since 1996 this party has only once lost the popular vote and that was in 2020 and now it's a party that seemingly is not going to exist you said it is a mess it sounds like a huge mess this the fact that it doesn't seem to have been run by anybody Beyond Kevin Falcon and I suppose maybe some of the people around him is he actually able to do this he is that's my understanding it's incredible yesterday he spent time with reporters doing profile pieces who is Kevin FAL the BC United leader I'm not sure he woke up on Tuesday Morning knowing he was going to do this by 9:00 at night he had made the decision on Wednesday I spoke to many caucus members of BC United I broke the news to them for a lot of them they had no idea that this was happening and they had no insight into why it's happened there are candidates who are still confused about whether they're the ones that should say I want to run there are 93 seats in this province Eric the conservatives have nominated more than 82 candidates so either they are going to get rid of some of these candidates who have had controversial viewpoints in the past or the conservatives deem is problematic replace them with some of these United candidates or these United candidates are going to be offered up the handful of seats that are left that are mainly in seats the NDP should win so these are people who have dedicated time left their work put in resources knocked on doors you see some of the social media posts James Mitchell in North Vancouver Jamie in Vancouver langera these are candidates who have been knocking doors every night they are talking about relating to these voters and now it's gone there's no more of this and you you asked the question can he do this he controls the party he the party leader but caucus can do a number of things I found out on Wednesday that he held a Caucus meeting minutes before the event was going to take place the news was already out there and one of the caucus members said to him Kevin resigned as leader of PC United allow us to pick an interm leader allow us to run candidates he refused to resign he hung up the phone and left to the press conference so he does have the power here to in essence decide who runs to freeze those candidates caucus can do what they want and they may attempt to pull some tools to remove Kevin Falcon as caucus leader but as party leader that's going to be much more complicated and and you've described it we are running running out of time and that could be one of the issues obviously around you know whether this is even possible I'm I'm just flabbergasted by I really don't know uh what to say after this kind of thing it's just something you don't see happening in politics you you see this kind of thing happening after an election defeat you don't see it often ahead of an election that I guess they're expecting to go down to defeat so these BCU candidates the ones that um really aren't going to be able to replace conservatives cuz maybe you know the cons party likes the people they already have in some of these places do they just they're not just going to do politics that's just it for them so you think about someone like Shirley Bond Shirley bond is an institution in this province one of the most successful politicians BC has ever seen represents the rioting of Prince George Prince George Valmont this is in essence the end of the line for her she is a DieHard BC liberal BC United supporter I can't imagine a situation where she puts up her hand and says I want to run for the conservatives and the conservatives were born out of protest towards the BC liberals BC United they're not going to welcome open their arms and say Shirley Bond sure come join us there are candidates like that who will not have a seat at this table and does her career end because of a Kevin Falcon press conference because of a backro deal that's a pretty crummy way to go for someone who has given so much to the province there are others that may decide to run potentially as Independents we'll see what happens with that mechanism around getting Falcon out as leader because they're going to try it now but it's unclear whether there's going to be an opportunity there so do they put their hands up and say fine I'll run as an independent and attempt that route those are really the only options you describe never seen this before I've never seen it either and and knowing the mechanisms are it's still so early right to understand the power that you have I think you know most of the the viewers listeners you know understand politics and will understand that you know political parties are an apparatus or an organization with their own Constitution and their own rules but we're now entering the realm of public perception right the the voters want to understand here where is this party and I've also looked at some really interesting polling around second choices not necessarily will BC United all go conservative there are a lot of them who are from the liberal wing of that former BC Liberal Party who were the Diehard United people who never wanted to vote NDP but never would go conservative where do they go now maybe they end up voting NDP that the latest poll I saw showed about 30% of PC United supporters would support the NDP as their second vote that could be enough for David Eevee here but now you know mono Amano head-to-head David eie versus John rustad with no fear in some ways of that vote splitting other than that idea of you know where do these more Centrist former BC Liberal Liberal voters now go yeah because I was uh asking I asked David ketto from Abacus he recently done a poll and he had found that roughly it was about 40 I think it was 46% of BC United voters said they would vote for the federal liberals and 32 would vote for the federal conservatives so whoever's left in the party might be a little bit more likely to go to the NDP than to the conservatives so is this going to help the conservatives uh in the election do they feel like this is going to be what puts them over the top yes and and they feel like this is their ability now not to split the vote I think the reality for a lot of people was with the liberal with BC United and BC conservatives both on the ballot the conservative path to victory was extremely difficult now without the United there they still have to knock off incumbent but we know there are these Global pressures on incumbents they are struggling all around the world uh around issues like cost of living and this province health care and Public Safety there is a sentiment from change but we're going to hear a lot of messaging from David eie saying that John rustad is just the same old BC liberals he is the same old conservatives that you don't like in this prodct that's going to be some of the messaging here sorry about the cam hey no I mean like I said this was a bit of an emergency podcast some things are gonna I mean that's the not the weirdest thing that's happened today in British Columbia that's for sure I'm in the rain I'm in the rain capital of British Columbia and I'm I'm doing this in the rain for you Eric and I've got a slippy spot on the window sill but I think we should be okay all right well we appreciate it so are there going to be any conservatives who aren't going to like this move yes there will be a lot of conservatives who don't like this move and to that point we're talking about earlier this was a protest movement here people did not like what had happened with the BC liberals they didn't like that John rustad was thrown out of the BC liberals they didn't like a lot of what Kevin Falcon stood for that he was part of this Old Guard they did not like the liberal part of BC United and they are going to be angry there is going to be some frustration and some of those candidates are going to be very worried that they're the ones that are going to be swapped out here when they were looking at opportunity to become an MLA they had dedicated their time as well to run for the conservatives so there will be part of this movement here that is discouraged by what they've seen and will not be happy with what is unfolding the organization now sees a clear path to Victory but there'll be a lot of conservatives who disagree a lot with what Kevin Falcon has stood for and what BC United has stood for so is the does the conservatives just replace the BC liberals in terms of the map in terms of the voters is the path now for the BC conservatives just exactly what it had been for Christy Clark and Gordon Campbell before this is the assumption that we are now looking in essence at a 2017 election map when the BC liberals won 43 the NDP 141 and the greens won three and the swing writings that we saw in that election will largely be the swing ridings now so the conservatives will have a significant advantage in many parts of Northern British Columbia so they will Target you know through the peace region into Prince George down into cam loops and Colona some of those key areas to watch for will be the NDP held seats in those regions so there are two in the Okanagan one in Vernon and one down South Boundary simil camine so in the simil camine valley going in to Soy use and Oliver those are NDP seats David E is going to do what he can to hold on to those seats they're they were beneficiaries of a a NDP movement with Horgan in 2020 with a unified right it's going to be harder in those ridings you also need to look in those areas right around Metro Vancouver where this election is decided so look at those ridings chillak and abbottford Langley as that Blue Wave comes in east to west then you start having this conversation about whether they can form government or not so you pick up those seats in the Langley they need to pick up some in Su the conservatives do they also have to have some success in other places in Metro Vancouver is that a few writings in Vancouver is that in Richmond the NDP had a huge breakthrough in Richmond last election first time they'd won there in decades could they potentially pull back those seats to conservatives from the NDP what's so incredible to me Eric is this is party that hasn't won a seat in this province since 1978 hasn't formed government since the 40s yes they've had some floor crossers but they've never won the first conservative that wins on Election night this year will be the first one to win in nearly 50 years and to then talk about them winning 47 of these to form government is is a a transition Point like we've never seen the area where they think they can pick up that hasn't been particularly generous in the past to BC liberals is on Vancouver Island there are three or four seats a few of those have been liberal in the past Courtney comok and the the Parksville riding that's now been broken up there's a big eye on those now from the conservatives including all the way up in North Island so those are places conservatives have had some success provincially some success federally and is going to be a spot where they're going to Target now and that's the electoral map you start building those are the the swings that I'll be looking at as we work towards the election to build up that possibility of a conservative majority does the NDP strategy have to change were they prepared just to run again John rustad or were they they were were they expecting to just ignore BCU does this change anything from a strategic point of view for the new Democrats from new Democrats I spoke to today it doesn't they they had already shifted you could have heard the language from David eie over the last two months he is targeting towards John rustad and this almost solidifies it that this is just the BC liberals renamed and John rustad had an opportunity as the conservatives to carve out something different the NDP will not give them that opportunity anyway they will say this is just the BC liberals that you know Ma you pay for healthare the ma you pay tools that had insurance rates that were Skyhigh just for driving your car those are the things you didn't like that you had to you know pay a huge amount of money for child care and wait in line for years you know in many cases families having to put their name on a waiting list even before a child was conceived you know these are the sort of issues you're going to hear time and time again at the same time bringing up this idea that you know John rustad has questions around uh the impact of man-made climate change uh rustad will be forced to explain that policy that there are candidates and even leadership within that party who are transphobic again there's going to be an opportunity for rustad to explain these policies what will they do to protect trans kids in this province there'll be a debate around free contraceptives that's been an incredibly popular policy from the NDP BC led the way on that policy in this country do the conservatives say that they're going to scap bail back free contraceptives we don't know we haven't really seen much of a map the only policy piece we saw from the conservatives was on Healthcare and the focus is on Private health care delivery that's another big sticking point private versus public Healthcare to be so I I just don't know how all of this will break down but I know that the NEP has a plan for some ads that will run soon that will be highlighting some of these issues I raised it means that BC is moving actually a little bit faster than we thought we would thought it would at least be a few more weeks into an orange blue fight like we see in Alberta and Saskatchewan and Manitoba does this make things easier for pier POV and the conservatives to pick a side because it seemed like there was some people on both within BCU and some people supporting the BC conservatives it's going to be really interesting and I don't know for sure but my gut is telling me that Pier POV may have gotten involved here and that there may have been a conversation from the federal arm of the party saying Kevin Falcon we wanted to stay out of this but we can't stay out of this anymore and if you don't get out of the way we will run you over I don't know that for sure it's just my gut it's a sense of something that could have changed here because Kevin Falcon's messaging for the last few months was always the same I am the one that's better able to serve the province these are a bunch of crazies a bunch of conspiracy theorists these aren't people that can govern these are Fringe candidates this this is the words that of Kevin Falcon's melt to describe to people that he has now endorsed so something must have pushed him and I think one of those things that could have pushed them or the federal conservatives who would have said we need this we need to pick a side and we're going to pick the other guy and that would have been problematic for Mike D young who's a BC United MLA he's running for the conservatives or hoping to hoping to hasn't won the nomination yet Dan Ashton BC United MLA hoping to run for the conservatives Ellis Ross BC MLA in a riding right near here representing Kad and Terrace uh who is running for the concern of federal election it was going to get complicated and I think now things have been simplified and we will see Federal conservatives show up in droves in this province to help in that blue versus orange fight because kolev wants to show strength leading up to that federal election and provincial elections are an opportunity to to test the climate of the elector and if he and his team can help the conservatives here it shows well as they try to to pass that message on federal if if they're now United um does this mean that now David E is the one with the delegate balance with ju me Singh and Justin Trudeau and because he needs a lot of those liberal voters yeah he needs and that's always been the case that he needs those liberal voters the the struggle is how many liberal voters are left you know we've seen polls go down but Justin Trudeau did incredibly well well here in the last federal election and those are the voters that David E is attempting to tap into those may also be the swing voters in Suburban uh Vancouver John aleg is a good example here uh he is the NDP candidate in langle Abbotsford he was an MP that won one of those really vital liberal conservative flip seats in Suburban Metro Vancouver yes Tides have changed people are frustrated with cost of living frustrated with the prime Minister some of that reflects on the premier as well but David EB has spent a lot of time recently attacking Justin Trudeau in Ottawa for a lack of financial support for BC projects he's raised the issue again of uh payments across the province to different provinces and the BC sends money through Equalization directly to Ontario and one thing British Colombians are united on is their disas towards Ontario especially when it comes to money so uh this is of those things where it's going to be curious and whether we do see some federal liberals get more engaged in this campaign historically it's been a weird balance here you've seen a lot of really prominent Federal liberal organizers also work for the BC liberals for BC United they won't feel at home with these conservatives so do they work for the NDP but they won't feel home there either right these organizers because they won't feel comfortable with jug meet Singh in his team so you have these people who are lost at sea a little bit and we'll find out uh where where they dock themselves when it comes to election all right I I want to finish on this because we haven't mentioned them um the question for me going to the election campaign was whether there was going to be only two parties left whether the greens and BCU might get wiped out at least now it's just about whether the BC greens are going to get wiped out or not they're going to be in some trouble in this campaign what are you kind of going to be watching for them so this is going to be fascinating because the best case scenario is 2017 they win a few seats hold the balance of power and then make a decision about who who they're going to support Sonia first to know sent out a statement basically saying that Falcon is laughing in the face of democracy here but I also wonder how green voters look at their options if they are truly concerned about the climate do they find home with John rustad one of the fascinating Parts about this Eric has been the role of Andrew Weaver the former green party leader because he's told me that he actually believes John Rad's climate plan is the same as John horens I haven't seen that on paper I don't fully understand what that means but I wonder how rustad articulates a climate vision and if he isn't able to appease environmentalists do they say you know what the greens are a protest vote we're going to go for the NDP because we're concerned about the environment just like the NDP is concerned about the environment that's one potential factor it's going to be interesting the greens are focusing in Sonia first and now is now running in Victoria in a a seat that has historically been held by the DP but the conservatives have a very good candidate there in Tim telman so you wonder what splits may happen in that ride he's backed by Steven Andrew who finished second in the Mayoral race it's it's going to be really intriguing to see what happens there and then in the old writing that first now held it's been split up in all sorts of weird ways she lives in one of the areas that got split off to side with soup which is historically been an NDP stronghold and the other part of couchin Valley Duncan got carved out and added another area so it's going to be really interesting what's at play here in terms of those seats and there's a new writing Victoria or Theo lanville uh that again a former bcnp MLA Gwen omah honey is running for the conservatives and a federal liberal George Anderson is running for the NDP so it's gonna be really interesting to see the dynamic there because that's another one the conservatives have their eye on uh so when we spoke earlier today I by asking you what to expect between now and the RIT Dro now I'm just going to ask you what do you expect what are you looking for between now and Monday and I because you're never going to eror it I said I expect Kevin Falcon's gonna quit in a few hours it was an amazing prediction I was really impressed uh I don't know what what am I going to expect so what we did talk about was the consolidation of the right and and did I expect this to happen no but I expected that we'd see some sort of solidification of the right that's now over so what do I expect can David eie brand these conservatives before they can brand themselves because right now many British Colombians don't know what a BC conservative is they know what a federal conservative is they know who P POV is but they don't know who John rustad is so can David eie frame John rustad before he can frame himself and I also wonder what job Kevin Falcon's gonna do that's for another day so there's just so much that can happen and that idea we're seeing globally around incumbents is going to make this a a challenging Road for David Evie and one of the most unlikely political stories that we will see in this province's history no it's just been an incredible day and you've been incredible to do this with me twice and we we only get to do the second time that we're going to put up for the public the first one is really good everybody I I tell you Richard's great so really appreciate you taking this time off on your vacation though I think a lot of things took made you get away from your vacation today but Richard looking forward to chatting again when this campaign gets going because who knows what's going to happen between now and then I was away when Christy Clark quit from the BC liberals I had Co when John Horan quit as Premier and I was away when Kevin Falcon quit I don't go away very often Eric but I'll Ward all politicians in British Columbia when I'm going away because that may be the moment that it's over for them yeah time to check your vacation with with BC's leaders Richard thanks so much really appreciate it today yeah my pleasure is always there thanks having me