Photo courtesy of World Economic Forum
The dust is finally starting to settle after two controversial (and some might say prophetic) by-elections in the valley yesterday. In both elections, the NDP’s candidate triumphed over their liberal and conservative opposition.
In the case of Port Moody-Coquitlam, the NDP’s Joe Trasolini captured about 54 per cent of the vote pushing him far ahead of BC Liberal Dennis Marsden and the Conservatives’ Christine Clarke who combined only took 45 per cent of the vote. It was a decisive (though not overly uprising win) for Trasolini who was a well known former mayor. He was also formally a liberal.
More controversial was the NDP’s win in Chilliwack-Hope. Gwen O’Mahony, who had twice run unsuccessfully, took 41 per cent of the popular vote. Meanwhile, Laurie Throness from the Liberals and John Martin of the B.C. Conservative Party shared about 58 per cent.
Throughout the afternoon, BC Liberal politicians and their allies repeated ad nauseam how the Chilliwack-Hope by-election was going to be the perfect case of splitting the “free enterprise” vote. They pointed to this polling as the reason anyone right of centre should be voting for the BC Liberals.
What’s not acknowledged in these tactics is the genuine difference in all matter of things between the BC Conservative and BC Liberal parties (and their supporters). While many BC Liberals seem to hope these differences could be smoothed under a single economic banner, the fractures are much deeper and more socially driven than they give credit. Whether its the HST, environmentalism or social beliefs, the reality is that there are many British Columbians (especially in rural BC) who believe the BC Liberal party is not sufficiently socially or fiscally conservative. They look east to Alberta’s Wildrose (a party vying to be more conservative than the progressive conservatives) in envy. These voters should not be seen as simply “free enterprise” voters as BC Liberal party strategists would hope, but rather fundamentally as “conservative” voters. No one should mistake them for anything else.
When one looks at federal or municipal politics, no one complains about vote-splitting the “free enterprise vote” in either of those arenas. It’s clear that 3-4 parties legitimately represent the political spectrum and that if I vote for Prime Minister Harper’s party, I’m not called out as a closet Liberal who should vote for that party instead to avoid a vote split. People acknowledge that the different parties stand for different things and everyone moves on trying to convince their opponents swing voters to come over to their side.
Right now we’re witnessing a titanic shift in provincial politics similar to what we saw the last federal election and earlier in the 2002 (with the ascendency of COPE) and again in 2005 (with the rise of Vision Vancouver). Whether you support this change or not, one should at the very least acknowledge it.
The implosion of political parties isn’t anything new to BC politics.