Category Archives: Politics

#BCPoli | Kevin Falcon Definitively Defines BC United’s Politics & Goals

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BC United leader Kevin Falcon, and BC Conservative leader John Rustad: poles apart on the issues

When Kevin Falcon was elected leader of the B.C. Liberal party on Saturday, February 5th, 2022, through until Saturday, April 30, 2022, when he won the recently vacated Vancouver Quilchena seat — long held by the B.C. Liberals, and before that the Social Credit party — taking his seat in the British Columbia Legislature, Mr. Falcon sought to re-define the values of the party he now headed, to bring the B.C. Liberal party into the 21st century, as a forward thinking, big tent party, well accepting of members of the LGBTQ community, and the broad cultural and ethnic communities that comprise the British Columbia we all call home.

Meeting individually with the 27 other members of the B.C. Liberal caucus in the two-month interregnum between February 5th, 2022 and April 30th of that year, Kevin Falcon sought to work with the members of his caucus to identify the values of his party as an inclusive, welcoming political party.

Not for Kevin Falcon, nor most members of his B.C. Liberal caucus, the fiasco of the 2020 provincial election, when Chilliwack-Kent B.C. Liberal candidate Laurie Throness’ comments on eugenics — a movement that promotes selective human breeding to weed out characteristics seen as undesirable — were captured in a Zoom recording, with Throness adding, “contraception would be a low priority for medical spending” should the B.C. Liberal party be elected to government.

Many in the B.C. Liberal party believed that Laurie Throness’s inflammatory statements, and then B.C. Liberal party leader Andrew Wikinson’s failure to repudiate Mr. Throness’s comments, caused such controversy among the B.C. electorate that on Election Day, October 24, 2020, the B.C. Liberals were denied government, and the B.C. NDP government of John Horgan was elected to a majority government.


Elenore Sturko, a Surrey RCMP sergeant and media spokesperson, took leave from the force to run as a B.C. Liberal candidate in the Surrey-South riding, winning the by-election held on September 10, 2022

Consistent with the B.C. Liberal party’s new, inclusive, welcoming and and expansive philosophy, Mr. Falcon sought well-known, Surrey-based lesbian activist Elenore Sturko to run as the B.C. Liberal candidate in the Surrey South seat that had become vacant when B.C. Liberal incumbent Stephanie Cadieux resigned her seat to become Canada’s first Chief Accessibility Officer.

Throughout the Surrey-South by-election period, Kevin Falcon continued his meetings with members of the B.C. Liberal caucus, one of whom was former B.C. Liberal Environment Minister, John Rustad, who had represented the northern riding of Nechako Lakes (Prince George-Omineca; 2005–2009) since 2005.

Kevin Falcon was astounded to find John Rustad was fundamentally opposed to the “new direction” of the B.C. Liberal party under Mr. Falcon’s leadership, that he disagreed with welcoming members of the LGBTQ community, that Mr. Rustad was vehemently opposed to the non-mandatory SOGI 123 (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) programme that had been implemented by the Christy Clark government in 2015, that Mr. Rustad felt climate change was a hoax, that he was a supporter of the anti-vaxx community, and adhered to any number of QAnon conspiracy theories, including wireless 5G as a root cause of COVID, a “theory” recently espoused by current B.C. Conservative candidate for Prince George-Mackenzie, Rachael Weber,  who was caught amplifying online conspiracy theories that 5G wireless networks are “genocidal weapons” and spread the coronavirus.

In a 2021 Facebook post, Ms. Weber voiced concerns about “microchips,” cashless payments and the threat of “total government dependency / control” by saying “the anti-Christ comes before the rapture.

As B.C. Conservative party leader, John Rustad has not disavowed Ms. Weber’s inflammatory comments, past or present, attributing calls for her removal as a candidate as a function of “culture wars.” Ms. Weber remains the B.C. Conservative candidate for Prince George-Mackenzie.

In posts on both Facebook and Twitter, Rustad shared a graphic and post arguing that people had been “hoodwinked” by climate change science and they should be glad CO2 is being emitted into the atmosphere.

In response, Kevin Falcon distanced himself from Rustad’s stance.

Long story short, on August 18, 2022, Kevin Falcon removed John Rustad from the B.C. Liberal caucus for boosting a social media post casting doubt on climate change science and urging people to “celebrate CO2.”

Ms. Sturko won the Surrey South seat with 52% of the vote, in a decisive victory over the B.C. NDP’s Pauline Greaves, receiving 5,568 of the 10,742 votes cast.


Elenore Sturko, and B.C. Liberal party leader, Kevin Falcon, celebrate Ms. Sturko’s landslide win

Sadly, Kevin Falcon’s jubilation at Ms. Sturko’s win was relatively short-lived.

On Friday, March 31st, 2023, John Rustad became leader of the B.C. Conservative party, and the rest is — as they say —  history.

As BK Anderson, in a Facebook comment on a VanRamblings post earlier in the week, writes: Kevin Falcon — a man of conscience, a visionary leader, a good man who cares deeply for all the citizens of our province — in bringing the B.C. Liberal party into the 21st century, positioned the party as too liberal for many party members, such that the renamed B.C. Liberal party, now called B.C. United, has become a pale imitation of David Eby’s centrist B.C. New Democratic Party.

Put simply, there is no sunlight between the B.C. United and BC NDP positions on the social and cultural issues in our province — unlike John Rustad’s regressive, antediluvian B.C. Conservative Party. Not for the good and progressive Kevin Falcon, the Trump-like culture wars that have plagued American politics, since Donald Trump’s marginal victory to become U.S. President in November 2016.

Rather than fight the ‘no win’ culture wars that have sewn division across the vast range of states in our neighbour to the south — the ground where B.C. Conservative leader, John Rustad, seems to want to fight the coming provincial election — Kevin Falcon is instead mounting a dynamic campaign of renewal, based on economic policy, towards building a better and more vibrant full employment economy, a stronger and better funded public education system, a renewed health care system where emergency room closures will be a phenomenon of the past, a democratic party where the voices of British Columbians from across of province will be heard, where job number one will be to ensure the construction of 100,000 new homes in the coming term of government.

Tomorrow on VanRamblings, we’ll conclude our four-part series on Kevin Falcon and the B.C. United party, with how Mr. Falcon intends to fight the coming provincial election campaign — set to get underway on Saturday, September 21st — and how B.C. United will fight the regressive forces of John Rustad’s out of touch B.C. Conservative party, so that his children — and all the children across our province — might grow up to adulthood to raise their own families, secure in a province where clean air, a vibrant public education system, and a full employment prosperity economy — where parents can earn a decent wage in order to care for the needs of their children — will cause all who reside within our province to thrive.

#BCPoli | The Rise of BC Liberal MLA Kevin Falcon

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BC United leader Kevin Falcon, with his arm around his much cherished 14-year-old daughter, Josephine, standing with his beloved wife Jessica, and their endearing 12-year-old daughter, Rose.

VanRamblings is flummoxed. For the life of us, we cannot understand how it is that one of the most successful political leaders in British Columbia history seems — if the polls are correct, and are the polls correct? — to have fallen on hard times, the citizens of the province seemingly deserting him en masse, his political fortunes not just in decline, but so low as to barely register on the political landscape, as 2024’s British Columbia provincial election looms, only 54 short days from today.

Kevin Falcon has had a storied quarter-century career in B.C. politics.

Back in 1999, having fought for the B.C. Liberal nomination in his home riding of Surrey-Cloverdale — defeating B.C. Liberal incumbent Bonnie McKinnon — only two short years later, 38-year-old political novitiate, Kevin Falcon, was selected to sit as the duly-elected Member of the B.C. Legislature, to represent the interests of his much cherished constituents — on whose behalf he fought for all of his time in politics — Mr. Falcon came to sit on the governing front bench of newly-minted Premier Gordon Campbell’s B.C. Liberal government.

Wanting to undo the “economic damage” that the British Columbia New Democratic Party had wrought in their 10 years in power — from October 17, 1991 through May 16, 2001 — said the newly-elected Premier, Mr. Campbell appointed the novice MLA from Surrey-Cloverdale as Minister of State for Deregulation, his job to undo arcane regulations impeding economic growth across our province.

Mr. Falcon took to his task with alacrity, élan, energy and dedication.

So effective was Kevin Falcon as Minister of State for Deregulation that the woebegone resource industries across B.C. began to thrive as they had not for generations, the mining and forest industries experiencing unimaginable growth, in consequence creating good paying union jobs for those living in rural communities across our province, all the while pouring hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue into government coffers, monies that would pay for an expanded health care system to meet the needs of all British Columbians, with the portent (it was hoped) of future growth in British Columbia’s long ignored transportation system, as well as benefiting our province’s beleaguered public education system.

Kevin Falcon’s reward for a job well done?

On Monday, January 26, 2004 with a show of confidence arising from his successful achievements in government, exceeding expectation, Premier Gordon Campbell appointed Kevin Falcon as British Columbia’s new Minister of Transportation, a position he held through June 10, 2009, at which time the eight-years-in-power Premier Gordon Campbell called his second provincial election.

As both a builder and a visionary, the newly-minted Minister of Transportation set for himself the task of ensuring the construction of a rapid transit line from Vancouver to Richmond, an idea that was pooh-poohed by the left in our province, thought to be unnecessary, unfeasible and a boondoggle.

“Nobody will ride the damn thing,” said those who decried the project.

At the time, Vision Vancouver Councillor Raymond Louie — who sat on Translink’s Board of Directors — opposed the construction of what came to be known as The Canada Line. Over weeks, which turned into months, Kevin Falcon met with an intransigent Raymond Louie, in an attempt to change his mind on the efficacy of a rapid transit line along the Cambie corridor, out to Richmond.

On Wednesday, June 30, 2004 — with boos and jeers from enraged citizens who had gathered in large numbers in the gallery to attend the public meeting — the TransLink Board of Directors — including the once recalcitrant Raymond Louie — voted 8 to 4 in favour to resurrect the controversial RAV rapid transit project, from Richmond-Airport to Vancouver, to the “best and final offer” stage.

On August 17, 2009 — three-and-a-half months ahead of schedule, and under budget — the Canada Line became a reality, ferrying passengers from downtown Vancouver to Richmond / the Vancouver Airport, from Day One far exceeding the projected ridership projection of ten years hence, the project a wild success, much appreciated by those citizens who rely on public transportation.

Long story short, upon re-election in the 2009 British Columbia provincial election, Kevin Falcon was appointed as Minister of Health Services in British Columbia, succeeding George Abbott in that post, on Wednesday, June 10, 2009.

Subsequently, on March 14, 2011, Kevin Falcon was assigned the post of Minister of Finance / Deputy Premier for the province, by Premier Christy Clark.

As we wrote yesterday, married for three years now to Jessica, the love of his life, and set to raise together their two young daughters, in 2012 Kevin Falcon made the decision to withdraw from public life, and focus on the needs of his family.

VanRamblings is attempting to write “short” these days.

Although we’d love to publish a 2500-word barn burner, in the interest of preserving our readers’ sanity, we’ll wait until tomorrow to explore the topic of The Decline of BC United Leader Kevin Falcon, and what may very well turn out to be, a four-part series on the esteemed — if beleaguered — Kevin Falcon.

See you back here on Wednesday.

#BCPoli | B.C. Conservative Leader Not the Aw Shucks Guy He Bills Himself As

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John Rustad, the ‘climate change denying’ (transphobic) leader of the upstart B.C. Conservative party — destined to become, either, British Columbia’s next Premier, or at the very least form the official Opposition in the next session of B.C.’s Legislature — portrays himself as an ‘aw shucks’ kind of guy, a ‘man of the people’ who hails from the hinterland, someone who has your best interests at heart, not to mention, a democrat of the first order, and the furthest thing you could possibly imagine from a died-in-the-wool autocrat, a detestable top down kind of fella.

Don’t you believe his ‘aw shucks’ persona for a second.

John Rustad — long a Cabinet Minister in Gordon Campbell’s and Christy Clark’s B.C. Liberal Party — is very much the autocratic / ‘my way or the highway’ kind of leader of the once moribund, but now seemingly thriving, BC Conservative party.

If Alec Lazenby’s PostMedia article published in the Vancouver Sun yesterday is to be believed — and who is going to question Mr. Lazenby’s well-searched, and well-sourced article? — as the headline of the article reads, B.C. Conservative constituency executive resigns as controversy swirls over party’s nomination process …

“In its haste to nominate 93 candidates in time for October’s provincial election, the B.C. Conservative party has angered some rank-and-file members by bypassing grassroots decision-making.

Last week, the president of the party’s Vernon-Lumby association — in charge of raising money and selecting a candidate for the riding — resigned after rumours that party leader John Rustad planned to parachute former federal Conservative hopeful Kevin Kraft into the riding.”

Mr. Lazenby’s article goes on to state …

“Last week, it was revealed the party had held discussions with former B.C. Liberal leadership contestant Gavin Dew about running in Vernon-Lumby, before ultimately deciding to place him in Kelowna-Mission after ousting Alexandra Wright as that riding’s candidate.”

In point of fact, Gavin Dew refused John Rustad’s entreaty to run in the Vernon-Lumby riding, as he makes his home — with his wife, former Vancouver Park Board Commissioner Erin Shum, and their two young children — in the south Okanagan city of Kelowna.

The next shoe to drop?

Gavin Dew, a one-time hopeful leader of the BC Liberal party was offered the BC Conservative seat of Kelowna-Mission, following the unceremonious ouster of longtime, loyal conservative Kelowna activist Alexandra Wright — up until Mr. Dew’s latter day ascension as a newly-minted BC Conservative candidate — the once-upon-a-time, but no more, elected by the constituency association to become their local BC Conservative candidate for Kelowna-Mission in the coming provincial election.

Is unhappiness with how John Rustad runs the BC Conservative party limited only to the south Okanagan Vernon-Lumby and Kelowna-Mission constituencies?

Nope. According to Mr. Lazenby …

“On June 7, Kari Simpson, the vice-president of the party’s Langley-Abbotsford association, asked the B.C. Supreme Court to cancel a nomination meeting scheduled for the next day.

Simpson’s complaint centred on party president Aisha Estey threatening to remove the local association’s board members if they didn’t delay the meeting by a week.

There is such a furore within the BC Conservative party, and its membership, that a cadre of party members have called on John Rustad to resign as party leader.

More recently, Mr. Lazenby’s article reads, “the party has had to respond to a group calling itself a “grassroots organization of B.C. Conservative supporters,” which put up a website calling for the firing of John Rustad over his appointment of candidates who were members of other parties, such as recent B.C. United defector Teresa Wat in Richmond-Bridgeport and former NDP MLA Gwen O’Mahoney in Nanaimo-Lantzville.”

Rob Shaw, in an article published in Business in Vancouver on Monday, writes …

“There’s a movement afoot within the BC Conservative party to fire leader John Rustad.

Some party members have been receiving a letter that accuses Rustad of “diluting” the Conservative brand by accepting floor-crossing BC United candidates, as well as candidates previously associated with the BC NDP.

Disgruntled BC Conservative party members write on their hastily published Fire John Rustad website … “We are writing to you today to raise the alarm about John Rustad’s recent welcoming of pro-Beijing and former BC Liberal MLA, Teresa Wat, into the BC Conservative Party with no regards for the voices of grassroots members,” it reads.

“We are a grassroots organization of BC Conservative supporters who have been around long before John Rustad’s appointment as leader, and will be around long after he’s gone.

“While we continue to support the party and look forward to forming government, we must put a stop to John’s diluting of our party.”

On March 26th of this year, VanRamblings wrote about the “bozo eruptions” that would most assuredly hinder the BC Conservative party from gaining government post the October 19th British Columbia provincial election.

Since that date, the BC Conservative party has jettisoned several nominated candidates over social media posts, including Esquimalt-Colwood hopefuls Jan Webb and Dr. Stephen Malthouse of Ladysmith-Oceanside, both who falsely claimed COVID-19 vaccines make you shed spike proteins and could make you magnetic.

Other BC Conservative candidates have left quietly, such as UFC fighter Jason Day of Columbia River-Revelstoke who made comments in May on social media that accused the World Health Organization of wanting to “achieve world government” by removing “from the minds of men, their individualism, loyalty to family traditions, national patriotism and religious dogmas.”

Constituency nominated BC Conservative Kyle Schell was recently replaced by John Rustad with Tony Luck in the riding of Fraser-Nicola, where Mr. Luck will go up against popular, longtime BC United MLA, Jackie Tegart.

The question arises: Are the wheels coming off the BC Conservative campaign bus, even before the provincial election campaign begins in earnest following the dropping of the Writ on Saturday, September 21st?

In an article published in the Burnaby Now, Global BC Legislative reporter Keith Baldrey writes …

The B.C. Conservatives, a moribund party for decades, is leading all parties with 81 people named as candidates, in the 93 ridings that will be up for grabs this October.

The NDP is not far behind, with 74 candidates nominated or named so far and another 13 people in the process of becoming one.

As for both the B.C. United and B.C. Green parties, given that they’re having a difficult time finding candidates to fill the 93 open slots, both parties will likely install party or caucus staffers as candidates to fill out their roster, if they need to.

Employing his autocratic style, rather than adhere to democratic engagement and allow ridings to nominate the local candidates of their choosing, instead Mr. Rustad has chosen to appoint his “preferred” BC Conservative candidates, thereby squelching community and local riding association input into who these local riding association members believe will best represent their interests in Victoria.

Sad that. Not to mention, anti-democratic and bullying.

But that’s the BC Conservative party heading into 2024’s B.C. provincial election.

#BCPoli | Polls, Polls and More Useless Damn Polls

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VanRamblings’ believes that Quitto Maggi’s Mainstreet Research poll on the positioning of the four main political parties in our province to be so much malarkey.

Unlike the Abacus poll we quoted yesterday that gives David Eby’s BC NDP a solid five-point lead over John Rustad’s upstart BC Conservatives — which ran only 19 provincial candidates in the 2020 British Columbia election, with 35,902 votes cast across the province for candidates running with the party, securing a paltry 1.91% of the popular vote — yesterday’s Mainstreet poll gives the BC Conservatives a 3-point lead in the popular vote, well within the poll’s multi-point margin of error.

On Tuesday, VanRamblings suggested that the Mainstreet poll was little more than a push poll, designed to influence prospective voters still sitting on the fence as to who they will cast their ballot. Further, Mr. Maggi’s Mainstreet Research polling has consistently over the years undercounted support for John Horgan or David Eby’s BC NDP provincially, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal party, federally.

Further, the Abacus poll, unlike the Mainstreet poll, results were broken down by region, giving David Eby’s BC NDP an insurmountable nine-point lead across Metro Vancouver and Vancouver Island, well outside of the 3.2% margin of error …

Out of a potential British Columbia voting population of more than four million adults who are eligible to cast a ballot at advance polls this early October, or on Election Day, October 19th, Mainstreet’s survey interviewed only 962 respondents, employing wildly unreliable automated telephone interviews as Mainstreet’s sole source of information, without any reference whatsoever to voter intention.

Further, Mainstreet’s published survey results fail to break down respondent response by the area of the province where respondents live, be it in the Metro Vancouver region, on Vancouver Island, the Okanagan, the Interior or the North.

Now, as it happens, the BC Conservatives have in their employ Canada’s best Conservative pollster, Dmitri Pantazopoulos — about whom we will write another day. Only the BC Conservative election team, and leader John Rustad — and certainly not everyday British Columbians — will see the results of Mr. Pantazopoulous’ intricate and wildly reliable daily polling results, intensive nightly surveys of those who live in each of British Columbians’ the ridings Mr. Pantazopoulos has deemed — and  targeted — as winnable for John Rustad’s BC Conservatives, the 50+ ridings that would give Mr. Rustad the winning Legislative majority, and government over the next four years.


Dimitri Pantazopoulos (above) will play a key role in determining the outcome of the 2024 BC election

The role of a prescient Mr. Pantazopoulous in determining the outcome of 2024 British Columbia election is a column VanRamblings will save for another day.