No One Losing Sleep Over BC Conservatives
Prince George, B.C. – The BC Conservative Party will choose their next leader at a convention in Prince George this weekend but it’s unlikely the B.C. Liberals or B.C. NDP are losing much sleep over it.
University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) political science lecturer Jason Morris describes the B.C. Conservatives as “more of a fringe party than a third party.”
“B.C. pretty much has a two-party system that’s ideologically polarized, the left wing BC NDP and right wing B.C. Liberals and these other parties just try to stay alive, literally.”
In fact, he says it’s been a long time since a third, or fringe party, has played much of a role politically.
“Perhaps since the mid-1990s with the Reform Party. And for the most part, B.C. has had a whole whack of fringe parties that haven’t been able to make a dent,” says Morris.
“The Green Party we could say has had more success lately than some of the more fringe, right wing parties in this province.”
Despite the long odds of such parties, he says they still play a role in this province.
“They can still have influence, they can still play a vital role in the democratic system by just being around,” says Morris.
“We often make fun of these fringe parties and sometimes use them to add a little levity or humour to politics, but often they’re still speaking for the voices of people in a province that don’t feel represented by the major parties.”
In the 2013 provincial election the party received less than 5% of the popular vote and won no seats in the legislature.
Comments
I think it’s disrespectful to add ‘fringe’ to the party in every comment. It proves a bias of the commentator more than anything.
I also think it’s a disservice to bring up the convention in the capacity of a media commentator and then not add any knowledge as to who is running; or what policies and meme’s are being put forward…. I guess labelling it all fringe voids any responsibility to participate in the democratic process through education of what’s at stake?
I think we don’t have a viable third party in BC because Elections BC put an end to that otherwise the BC liberals wouldn’t have been in power the last decade. Reform BC was polling at 23% when Election BC banned them from the election. The right never did recover because all the big donars by then we’re entrenched with the liberals.
All the media/news sites are self serving these days, there is no fair and impartial reporting. From 250 news, to cnn.. all are biased and it sucks.
Very much the truth.The Media and the Court’s think they are running the country
Yes, they prefer to make the news rather than report it!
We should keep in mind that being stuck with this so called two party system is the worst possible thing that happens with BC Politics.
The worst case scenario for the Liberals or NDP is that they will end up as the official opposition. They still get their great salaries, benefits and pensions.
I think that the Liberals have been in power to long, have lost touch with reality, and basically are running BC into the ground. On the other hand the NDP has absolutely nothing to offer to the citizens of BC, except higher taxes, and services.
In other words we have arrived at a point in time when these two parties basically use the system to pay their salaries, and look after their long term interests at a cost to taxpayers.
So for that reason we need to throw at least some of them out. Citizens have only one chance every four years to make a statement. Blindly following the mistakes of the past, and using the old excuses **If you don’t vote for the Liberals the NDP will get in, or if you don’t vote for the NDP the Liberals will continue to give you bad Government** just doesn’t cut it anymore.
We need to elect some Conservative, some Greens, and a few Independents, this will give the Liberals and NDP something serious to think about, and maybe just maybe we will start to get some intelligent Government in this Province,.
Have a nice day.
We dont have a liberal party in BC. They just think they are liberals. Hard to say what they really are.
Cheers
Completely agree, when it comes to provincial politics, Conservatives, Liberals, and Reformers are all the same! What is really bizarre is how the Conservatives / Reformers abandoned their own party and took over the BC Liberal Party.
I’d love to see pictures . The cons conventions seem to always resemble a cross between a freak show and a circus with the usual angry old white guys shaking their fists at the clouds . And let’s forget about the big hair .
We don’t have a liberal party in in n BC. They are liberal in name only. Hard to they tell who they really are.
Cheers
They are latter day harperettes and nothing to do with liberalism . Calling themselves liberals is false advertising.
No, it’s not hard to tell who they are at all, Retired02. The actual ‘control’ of the BC Liberal Party is, and always has been, centred in the greater Vancouver area. It’s comprised of some big city ‘debt dealers’ ~ financiers, is a fancier word for them. Big money boys, who never get any dirt under their manicures. They care not a whit about all the things that concern most of those who vote for them throughout the rest of the Province. So long as they can pick your pockets, they’re quite content to give you the same ‘socialism’ in low gear the NDP would try to give you in high gear. By the time people wake up to that fact, it’ll be too late. We really haven’t had a credible alternative to the phoney latter-day-so-called-Socred cum Liberal/NDP match-up since the days of Social Credit under WAC Bennett. Waccy knew exactly who the Liberals were, and what they were. They wormed their way into the original BC Social Credit League and turned it into the BC Social Credit Party, and then milked that name for all the nostalgic value it had. Now they’re back to their original dirty moniker, which fits them to a tee. Sad that so many are so afraid of the NDP they’ll keep voting for them, and get exactly what they deserve for doing so.
The BC Liberals remind me of the mighty Platypus, not even it knows what it is.
ht tp://tinyurl.com/zmelxhf
As usual we get the Hee Haw Donkey statements from Ataloss and JGalt. Neither on of them has a clue about politics, or how the system works.
I would love to see the pictures of an NDP Convention. Everyone there would be on some kind of Government job, or high paid union position. Not one of them could earn a living without relying on bona fide taxpayers to pay their salaries. They then have the gall to bite the hand that feeds them.
Seems to me that both Campbell and Clark were longtime members of the Liberal Party and of course there are others. I agree that we have some old Social Credits still hanging around, however you would be hard pressed to find an actual Provincial Conservative in the BC Government.
Palopu states; “I would love to see the pictures of an NDP Convention. Everyone there would be on some kind of Government job, or high paid union position. Not one of them could earn a living without relying on bona fide taxpayers to pay their salaries.”
Pot meet kettle!
“Judging by a recent string of political appointments, British Columbia is also a hot destination for recently unemployed Stephen Harper Conservatives and staffers from Alberta’s defeated Conservative government. Since last month, about a dozen Conservative-aligned political staffers have found employment with the B.C. government.”
ht tp://tinyurl.com/jo8odtm
Regardless of who they are or whether they look like drag queens, they are contributing to our economy and that’s good.. Let’s not put them down or anything.. They will be spending money in our City. God knows we need more money to support our local civic employees
The ‘Achilles heel’ of BOTH the federal Conservative Party of Canada and the BC Conservatives is that they simply do not understand ‘finance’. They base their policies on conceptions regarding that subject that are false. When the socialists bleat that, “…the poor are poor because the rich are rich”, which is utter nonsense in this country, Conservatives come out with some utterly inane response, like the one that all “the poor” have to do is ‘produce MORE’ and ‘consume LESS’ and they could be all ‘rich’, too. And that’s the BEST they can do? And when people take them at their word, and actually try to DO just as they said they should do, and they’re still ‘poor’? C’mon people, THINK! Look at the PHYSICAL realities, not a bunch of ‘figures’ with some $ signs in front of them that have become completely divorced from being what they supposed to be able to accurately, numerically REFLECT.
I won’t lose any sleep over them, even though they are a nightmare. The Liberals are not much better and they must be turfed as well.
Comments for this article are closed.