BC United candidates considering their options after party dissolves

Members of BC United have been left reeling and forced to make new plans after Leader Kevin Falcon announced Wednesday that the party was suspending its election campaign.

MLA for West Vancouver-Capilano, Karin Kirkpatrick, took to social media this week, making her disappointment known. 

“You have left all of us middle-of-the-road centrist voters with no political home here in B.C. Thanks a lot,” Kirkpatrick wrote in a post Thursday, apparently addressing Falcon.

She tells 1130 NewsRadio she’s “very angry.”

“I feel that there’s been a real disservice done to British Columbians by completely removing that middle choice, which I think is where most British Columbians, ideologically or from a principled perspective, actually fit,” said Kirkpatrick. “

“And it was done in such an egregious way and hurt so many different people who had really, really been trying hard to support Kevin and to support the party.”

She says she shares the grief with many of her colleagues and donors who are feeling dismissed and disrespected.

Kirkpatrick says she expects the change will draw a lot of centre-left voters to support the BC NDP, but for herself, “that might be a bridge too far.”

“But the whole point of BC United was that there are a whole heck of a lot of federal Liberals in there, disenfranchised NDP people who would never vote for the right, and so they’re going over to the NDP, and I think this has actually helped the NDP. They’re probably doing a victory lap today,” she said.

Kirkpatrick says on Wednesday morning, most party members heard rumblings of Falcon’s idea to end the campaign the same way members of the public did.

“And then we ultimately found out on Twitter that Kevin was not just throwing in the towel, but throwing the entire party under the bus.”

She says she was the one to tell Falcon to resign in that now infamous call with caucus members just moments before the party leader publicly announced the bombshell move. She says Falcon said he wouldn’t step down, and then the call ended.

“I was asked to ask that question, and I did, and I did it in a fairly forceful way, and he was very clear. He said ‘no.’ And the confusion here, I think the public has, is he did not step down as the leader of the party. He is still the mastermind of the demise of the party, because he’s still the leader, and he is making these decisions on behalf of my colleagues in terms of what the future of the party is,” she said.

She said she and other members were left wondering why Falcon didn’t consult them, and why he didn’t make the decision to step down and leave the party’s campaign status intact.

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“When you’re what — 23 days out from an election? — and you pull something like this, it almost feels like the intention was to wait as long as possible, so that you would take all resources away from anybody being able to put together another party or mount an independent campaign. So if he wanted to do this and he felt that he was not able to take us over the finish line, he should have said that six months ago.”

She says she feels betrayed by Falcon after supporting him for years in what she believed was a good relationship.

“It’s not easy being a leader, and you’re not always going to get it right. So I gave him the benefit of the doubt, and I stood behind him, which is why this makes me even more furious as to what happened here.”

MLA for West Kelowna, Ben Stewart, tells 1130 NewsRadio that many BC United candidates in the Okanagan are waiting over the weekend to hear if John Rustad will ask them to run for the BC Conservatives.

He says all but one of the Okanagan area candidates met Thursday night to discuss their plans. 

“These are really high-quality people, thoughtful, and we’re hoping that between the discussions that go on in the next couple of days that they’re considered to be the best choice,” Stewart said of his fellow candidates.

He says there’s “no truth” to rumours that candidates and MLAs from the Okanagan are thinking of forming their own party.

Kirkpatrick says the rumour extends beyond the Okanagan but adds candidates would have a “pretty big hill to climb” in terms of getting a new party established and registered with Elections BC before the deadline, which is just weeks away.

“I think there are a number of MLAs or candidates who are already poised to win their ridings who could run as an independent or run as ‘non-affiliated.’ Which is what they would do — run as ‘non-affiliated,’ — and then get elected into the house and be able to come together as some kind of middle voice or middle party at that point,” said Kirkpatrick.

—With files from Srushti Gangdev