BC Liberals vote to change name to BC United

The BC Liberals have a new name, as decided by its membership.

The party has voted to change its name to BC United.

Leader Kevin Falcon says 80 per cent of the voters who cast a ballot were in favour of the name change.

“For more than 20 years, our party’s name has been a constant topic of debate. A strong vote for BC United marks a new beginning,” Falcon said Wednesday.

“I’m excited to move forward as BC United because it really reflects our big tent party, united for a common purpose of making life better for British Columbians.”

The party says it consulted with members across the province after a June convention resolution, where the majority of delegates announced their support for a new name.

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BC United was chosen as the favourite new moniker out of more than 2,000 suggestions, the party adds.

“In keeping with the commitments we’ve made, all of our members had the opportunity to vote as to whether they wanted to change the party name to BC United, or to remain as the BC Liberals,” said John Yap, president of the BC Liberal Party.

Party Vice-President Caroline Elliott notes the name change is just one step in “an overall renewal process” she says is “already well underway.”

The new name will now go to a constitutional ratification process, expected to take place early next year. Once the BC United name has been ratified, the party will move to change its logos and other brandings, though a timeline has not been announced.

The Liberals have registered “BC United” with Elections BC, but note the party will “retain registration of the BC Liberal name, and all associated domains, to avoid any other party obtaining its use.”

Voting for the name change opened to members online on Sunday, Nov. 13, concluding on Tuesday, Nov. 15.

Branding experts have previously said the new potential name signals the party is going for a more contemporary moniker.

Name change a ‘calculated risk’: political scientist

The BC Liberals say the name change will mark a new beginning for the party. While there is still much work to be done in until the transition is official, political experts say a big change like this could be effective.

Quest University political scientist, Stewart Prest, says the new name is a “calculated risk,” noting the success of rebranded parties at other levels of government.

“We can look to just the recent municipal election where we saw effectively a new party, the ABC municipal party in Vancouver, come from effectively nothing. It was newly formed and it swept to victory,” he told CityNews after Wednesday’s announcement.

Prest points out how the party’s new name drummed up a conversation before it was even voted on.

“We’ve now done successive news cycles where we’re discussing the name change and the funny-ness of the soccer references. So it helps draw up more attention,” he said.

The challenge for the party now, Prest says, is to unite a voter base that historically has not agreed on things.

“There is this increasing polarization between two of the core groups of voters that they’re trying to tap into. The groups that they’re trying to unite is effectively are a segment of federal Conservative voters and a segment of federal Liberal voters and those are two groups of voters that don’t see eye-to-eye on all kinds of things,” he said.

Since being named leader of the BC Liberals in February, Falcon has said changing the name of the party has been a top priority.

With files from Martin MacMahon