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#BCPoli | Falcon | The King is Dead, Long Live the King

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When BC United leader Kevin Falcon announced yesterday afternoon in a joint press conference with BC Conservative leader John Rustad that he would be resigning as leader of his party — while suspending BC United’s campaign for office in the upcoming British Columbia election, leaving John Rustad’s B.C. Conservative party to represent the alleged centre-right in a two-way race with David Eby’s British Columbia New Democratic Party, Kevin Falcon did so with a heavy heart.

Today on VanRamblings, we’ll provide you with the background that led to Kevin Falcon making his decision to step away from British Columbia electoral politics.

Make no mistake, there is no love loss between Kevin Falcon and John Rustad.

Kevin Falcon continues to believe — as he espoused to Global BC’s Keith Baldrey in a breakfast / walk around the Legislature grounds on Tuesday morning — that John Rustad represents an existential threat to the health and well-being of British Columbians, in particular to the interests of families raising children.

Interesting that Kevin Falcon — as VanRamblings has been writing all week — gave as rationale for his resignation, the interests of his two young daughters, and by extension all children across the province.

Focusing on the interests of children was the code Mr. Falcon employed to state that he remains adamantly opposed to the climate denialist, homo-and-transphobic, racist, misogynist,  anti-vaxx, Christian dominionist-wannabe, Trump-like John Rustad-led BC Conservatives.

So, what led Kevin Falcon to make the very difficult decision to leave politics?

Sources tell us, two weeks ago representatives of the development industry in our province met with Mr. Falcon, demanding he resign as BC United party leader, and fold the B.C. United tent in favour of supporting John Rustad’s B.C. Conservative party, a “request” that was anathema to Kevin Falcon.

The development industry was not simply making a suggestion to Kevin Falcon, an idle request he might consider, but a demand, backed up by a threat …

“Either you resign as leader, and fold the B.C. United campaign for office, or we assure you that you will never work again in British Columbia, no one will hire you, you will be unemployable, and unable to provide for your family.”

Representatives of the development industry were not making an idle threat.

Kevin Falcon was given two weeks to make up his mind as to what course of action he would take. In coming to a decision, Mr.Falcon took the interests of his wife, and his two daughters, Josephine and Rose, as his priority and .. resigned.


Dimitri Pantazopoulos, currently employed as B.C. Conservative pollster, and co-campaign manager

Earlier this week, Kevin Falcon met with his longtime friend Dimitri Pantazopoulos, long Stephen Harper’s Conservative party pollster, B.C. Liberal and Vancouver Non-Partisan Association pollster, who is currently employed by the surging B.C. Conservatives as that party’s pollster, and de facto co-campaign manager. As you may recall, it was Mr. Pantazopoulos who in British Columbia’s 2013 provincial election identified the 50 B.C. ridings that the B.C. Liberals could win — this at a time when B.C. Liberal Premier Christy Clark was mired at 26% in the polls, with Adrian Dix soaring at 49% voter approval. Indeed, on May 14, 2013, Christy Clark did, in fact, win the 50 seats Mr. Pantazopoulos had identified.

When Dimitri Pantazopoulos met with Kevin Falcon, Mr. Pantazopoulos told him …

“Kevin, not only will B.C. United be decimated at the polls on the night of October 19th, none of B.C. United’s candidates will win in their ridings, and that includes you. At the moment, Kevin, you are running a distant second to Dallas Brodie, the B.C. Conservative candidate and longtime resident within your Vancouver-Quilchena riding, while you continue to maintain your family home across the inlet in North Vancouver. You’re going to lose, and lose badly, an embarrassing and regrettable loss to be sure, but a most assured loss, and a humiliating end to your once promising political career in British Columbia politics.”

And with that piece of devastating news, Kevin Falcon’s decision was made.

The ironic aspect to the present British Columbia political circumstance, where John Rustad stands on the precipice of victory at the polls on October 19th, is that Mr. Rustad doesn’t even want to be British Columbia’s next Premier.

At 61 years of age, having celebrated his birthday on August 18th, Mr. Rustad believes he’s had his day in the sun — as British Columbia’s once upon a time B.C Liberal government Minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation, and Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources. Not for this man from the hinterlands, the cut and thrust of electoral politics. Mr. Rustad simply wants to rest.

When John Rustad was unceremoniously dropped from the B.C. Liberal caucus on his birthday in 2022, for his antediluvian stand on LGBTQ issues, his vehement opposition to the SOGI 123 (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) programme, his contention that climate change is a hoax, his support of the anti-vaxx movement, and his adherence to any number of QAnon conspiracy theories, including wireless 5G as a root cause of COVID, John Rustad was only too happy to leave what he considered to be a “too progressive” BC United party.

When, some months, later — on Friday, March 31st, 2023 — John Rustad became leader of the B.C. Conservative party, he expected that he’d been heading a conservative party better aligned with his alt-right values, and a provincial political party that in 2024 would likely secure only 1.92% of the vote, as the B.C. Conservatives had in the 2020 British Columbia provincial general election.

Colour John Rustad surprised and disappointed when that presumed outcome of his leadership of the B.C. Conservative party did not come to pass.

So, what does this hill ‘o beans all mean?

Well, there are a couple of issues to consider before we wrap today’s column.

According to an extensive polling of British Columbians from across the province that was conducted last evening, David Eby’s New Democratic Party finds itself in pretty good shape following Kevin Falcon’s resignation as B.C. United leader, with an expected win of 57 seats (a 10-seat majority) in the next (post election) session of the Legislature, to only 36 seats for John Rustad’s B.C. Conservatives.

Given how Kevin Falcon came to define his B.C. United party as a fiscally conservative, yet socially progressive, political party, the thinking among the political cogniscenti is that the remaining adherents of B.C. United just can’t stomach John Rustad’s alt-right B.C. Conservative party and have headed over to the political party, the B.C. New Democrats, that better align with their values.

Next up: you know how we were discussing the power of the development industry to influence the state of politics in British Columbia? Well, listen up, cuz we’ve got a story of wit and (who knows how much) wisdom to tell you.

Turns out that the development industry is pretty darn happy with David Eby’s “we’re gonna build 100,000 units of housing in our next term of government” development ethos. Through Geoff Meggs — former Vision Vancouver City Councillor, former Chief of Staff to Premier John Horgan, and since 2005 the left’s political liaison to the development industry, and at present a senior housing development advisor to Premier David Eby and Minister of Housing Ravi Kahlon — they’ve been only too happy to fund David Eby’s NDP re-election bid.

Who’da thunk, huh?

The development industry does not want John Rustad’s B.C. Conservatives to win — gain 40 seats, sure, but hell’s bells, not win — so that John Rustad, who doesn’t for gawd’s sake even want to be Premier, might be replaced within the next year by someone who would, sure, be conservative, but a more pragmatic and palatable to the general public conservative.

Hell, if the antediluvian John Rustad were to win, the development industry would lose billions of dollars in revenue from the David Eby ‘transit-oriented projects’ that would be sidelined were the B.C. Conservatives to win majority government on Saturday, October 19th.

With an easily manipulated Brad West, Elenore Sturko or that youngster, Gavin Dew, installed as the next B.C. Conservative party leader — following John Rustad’s ouster —  should the development industry tire of David Eby come the next provincial election in 2028, they’d have their favourite ambitious, developer-friendly guy or gal in place to do their bidding.

Everybody wins, except us.

Today, we are 52 days away from knowing the outcome of the 2024 British Columbia provincial election, an election VanRamblings predicts will experience a record low turnout — as happened in the last Ontario election, when a paltry 43% of the population turned out to vote, by orders of magnitude the lowest ever turnout in any provincial election, ever.

What does David Eby’s New Democratic Party have in their favour that might contribute to victory come the evening of Saturday, October 19th? A ground game. There is no political party in Canada, and in B.C. in particular, that has a better, more sophisticated and vibrant Get Out the Vote (GOTV) mechanism.

VanRamblings has worked on dozens of federal and provincial NDP campaigns.

We can tell you that you don’t know the meaning of the word organized until you’ve worked on a B.C. New Democratic Party election campaign.

Not to mention, David Eby’s NDP are, by far, the best funded B.C. political party.

What do the B.C. Conservatives have in their favour?

We’ll get into that next week — when, unlike above, we promise to be kind.

#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.