At some point on Wednesday, October 19th, former British Columbia NDP Finance Minister Elizabeth Cull, who is overseeing the leadership race that will select the next leader of British Columbia’s New Democratic Party, will make a decision as to whether to allow Anjali Appadurai to run for the party’s leadership.

VanRamblings believes Ms. Cull will deny Ms. Appadurai’s controversial bid to become the next leader of the British Columbia’s New Democratic Party, and as the party currently leads government in Victoria, our province’s 37th Premier select.

From the outset, Ms. Appadurai’s application to a B.C. New Democratic Party leadership contender has been fraught with controversy.

Atiya Jaffar (left) and Anjali Appadurai. Jaffar volunteered to pay membership fees for the prospective BC NDP leadership contender, while on an Instagram live event hosted by Ms. Appadurai. Ms. Appadurai and supporter Jaffar have been under internal investigation for alleged vote buying. Photo: Instagram

“It’s a handful of people that get to decide who our next premier is,” Jaffar told viewers. “Message me if you need the $10, because I’m happy to provide that for you.”

Section 255 of the Elections Act states that an individual or organization must not give, pay, lend or induce an individual to vote for or against a particular candidate. Sept. 4th was the deadline to sign-up new members to decide whether Appadurai or frontrunner David Eby should replace outgoing Premier, John Horgan, this fall.

Jaffar is the senior digital specialist at 350.org, a U.S.-based environmental charity that organizes anti-oil and gas pipeline protests.

Jaffar was integral in the Shut Down Canada campaign in the first quarter of 2020, employing social media platforms to promote illegal blockades at the Port of Vancouver, Deltaport, the Granville Bridge and on CP Rail tracks in East Vancouver. Ms. Jaffar was also involved in the 2020 sit-in at Eby’s Point Grey riding office.

The Dogwood Initiative — a non-profit public interest group based in Victoria, British Columbia — is currently under investigation by Elections BC over whether its use of resources to run a membership drive for Appadurai is an improper in-kind donation. Elections BC has yet to rule on whether the Dogwood Initiative has improperly interfered in the BC NDP leadership race.

“For those who support political parties other than the BC NDP but still want to have a say in this race, you could choose to pause your membership and return after you cast your vote,” wrote Dogwood campaigns manager Alexandra Woodsworth.

“It’s also worth noting that parties don’t share membership lists with one another and there is no penalty for an overlap in your membership as you switch back and forth between parties.”

Anjali Appadurai shared the article on various social media platforms.

From the time Ms. Appadurai announced her bid to become the next — unelected — Premier of the province of British Columbia, Appadurai has criticized a panoply of government policies, declaring David Eby as an establishment candidate.

David Eby, whose roots are in legal advocacy on behalf of homeless and underhoused residents of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, was appointed British Columbia’s Attorney General in 2017, when the BC New Democrats formed government. Mr. Eby is credited with cleaning up the mess at ICBC, and the money laundering crisis, launching the Cullen Commission (Commission of Inquiry Into Money Laundering in British Columbia), in May 2019. Since the November 2020 B.C. election, Mr. Eby has also acted as British Columbia Minister Responsible for Housing.

Neither camp has released specific numbers, but sources believe Appadurai’s campaign recruited about 11,000 members, perhaps twice as many as was the case with Eby. The party is believed to have had roughly 11,000 members entering the leadership campaign — although the latter 11,000 membership figure is in dispute, as the BC NDP earlier this year required party members to re-apply for provincial NDP membership, separate from the federal party. This reporter was advised that at campaign outset, the party had only 6,000 active members — which, if the case, would give Appadurai an insurmountable lead in the leadership race.

From marching on the picket lines with members of the BCGEU, when union members were picketing and on strike seeking a new contract — settled by the government at 13½% over three years — to announcing that her government would implement a 25% across the board pay increase for nurses, just as the BC Nurses Union was successfully settling their contract with the government, Ms. Appadurai has challenged British Columbia New Democratic Party government orthodoxy, and the actual functioning of the government that she purports to want to lead.

Anjali Appadurai has stated that she would cancel the Site C dam project — near completion, and said to be completed in 2024 — cancel the Trans Mountain pipeline project, and eliminate government subsidies of the LNG project in the North of our province — proposing to shut the project down entirely, should she become the leader of the provincial NDP — while also, with the stroke of a pen, eliminating the British Columbia government’s subsidy of the province’s fossil fuel industry.

If such action were to be taken by an Anjali Appadurai-led B.C. government — a government which was not elected to a majority in 2020 proposing the policies Ms. Appadurai espouses — thousands of workers in the north would be thrown out of work, including members of the 60 Indigenous bands who are currently working on the Site C, LNG and Trans Mountain pipeline projects, never mind the multi-billion dollar breach of contract law suits that would be filed in B.C. Courts.

The above written, VanRamblings is hardly a supporter of the Site C dam project, nor are we particularly thrilled with the twinning of the Trans Mountain pipeline, not to mention that we believe that the LNG project portends not only environmental degradation, but given the number of earthquakes up north in recent weeks and a months, disaster and tragedy for those who live in the North.

So, why then are we seeming to oppose Anjali Appadurai’s bid to lead the British Columbia New Democratic Party? The answer: realpolitik, defined as “politics based on practical and pragmatic factors rather than on moral, theoretical, ideological or ethical objectives, commonly known as the politics of reality.”

Here’s the bottom line: Anjali Appardurai has not secured the support of one sitting BC NDP MLA elected to government and sitting in the Legislature in Victoria, while David Eby has the bold support of 48 members of the New Democratic Party caucus, out of 57 elected NDP, the 9 other MLAs prevented from weighing in, so as to avoid a conflict of interest (think: the Premier, Deputy Premier, Speaker of the House & Deputy Speakers, and the government house whip, and others).

Why would Anjali Appadurai want to lead a party that doesn’t want her, doesn’t agree with her policy orientation, would pass a motion of non-confidence in her, and refuse to seat her as Premier, if she achieved the majority support of “party members”, in what many believe would be a hostile takeover of the party?

If Ms. Appadurai is truly a supporter of the BC NDP, as she states, why would she risk throwing the party, the government and the province into chaos were she to win the B.C. New Democratic Party’s leadership race, the inevitable end result of which would be the rejection of her leadership by members of the BC NDP caucus?

There is precedence, recent precedence, for a political party rejecting the application of a leadership hopeful.  For instance …

• Aaron Gunn whose bid to become leader of the B.C. Liberal party was soundly rejected for espousing views that “we believe are inconsistent with the Liberal party’s commitment to reconciliation, diversity and acceptance of all people in B.C.”
• Patrick Brown, whose recent bid to lead the federal Conservative party was rejected by the Tory party committee charged with running the leadership race, who unanimously disqualified the one time leader of the Ontario Conservative Party, current Brampton Mayor, and Conservative Party leadership hopeful.

The party decides.

VanRamblings believes that late Wednesday morning, or early in the afternoon, Elizabeth Cull will announce that Anjali Appadurai’s application to enter the BC NDP leadership race has been rejected. Ms. Cull will explain why. The decision as to whether to accept or reject Ms. Appardurai’s application is entirely a matter for the party to decide. The party has decided; it is now up to Elizabeth Cull to carry out the wishes of members of the Executive Council of the BC NDP, and of all the members of the BC NDP caucus — lest the province be thrown into political chaos.

Time for John Horgan to step down, and David Eby to step forward to become British Columbia’s 37th Premier, and get on with the job of governing our province.