BC Conservatives gaining support ahead of election: poll

A new survey says the BC Conservatives are earning more votes in this province over BC United.

A recent survey from Mainstreet Research put BC Conservatives at 34.2 per cent support — in second place, to the NDP’s 39.6 per cent — and BC United is at a distant third with 14.2 per cent.

John Rustad, the BC Conservatives leader, tells CityNews that the difference between his party and BC United is that the latter “flip-flops about every single issue.”

“The question isn’t what do they stand for today, but what will they stand for tomorrow?” Rustad said.

“Whereas the Conservative Party is very clear, we’re being very straight up with people.”

Rustad says his party is about “standing for what’s right and fighting for the average everyday person.”

He says people across the political spectrum are unhappy about the current government, and his party will provide the alternative they want.

“We want to see a good government, we want to see common sense, you want to see things like axing the carbon tax, and putting money back into people’s pockets,” he said.

“We have people that are NDP, we’ve got people in our party that are green, got people who are liberal, and conservative — we’re putting together a broad coalition.”

Rustad says 16 years of BC Liberal and seven years of NDP has changed nothing, and only his party can offer an alternative.

“We’ve got a crisis and affordability, we have a crisis in housing, we’ve got a crime crisis. We got a crisis with addiction, and a crisis in our resource sector,” he said.

Rustad tells CityNews his party is not able to reveal what it aims to do at this point to help with the cost of living.

“There are big steps that have worked historically… Of course, we got to focus on what really matters, which is reducing the costs for consumer and increasing their ability to be able to pay for it,” he said.

The provincial election is scheduled for October 19th.

-With files from Rob Snow.