The Liberals in British Columbia have become the lesser of two evils, and it's time for change besides the B.C. NDP, says Dan Brooks, the leader of B.C.'s Conservative Party.
He is on an ambitious mission to unite right-of-centre voters ahead of the province's general election in 2017.
Brooks was in 100 Mile House for a meet-and-greet event as part of a province-wide tour on Nov. 12. The Vanderhoof resident is trying to rebuild the B.C. Conservative Party (BCCP), which hasn't won a seat in the provincial legislature in decades.
Brooks, who was elected party leader in 2014, is reaching out to voters, reconnecting with party members, and developing a platform ahead of the election in 2017, in which he hopes to reposition the BCCP as a realistic alternative to the Liberals or NDP, the dominant political parties in the province.
A lot of conservatives in this province support the Liberals in fear of the NDP, says Brooks.
“And that has to end. Eventually, conservatives have to stick out on their own.”
Under the current B.C. Liberal government of Christy Clark, the interests of rural British Columbians are being “marginalized,” Brooks says, adding the BCCP will “rebalance that equation” and stand up for rural voters, like those in the Cariboo-Chilcotin.
“You've got a declining population in rural British Columbia and an expanding population in the big cities. As that trend continues, you see political power being syphoned away from rural B.C. and stuffed down in the Lower Mainland.
"There's that old saying, 'There's no hope beyond Hope'. A lot of people in the Interior and the North feel that way – like, 'What about us?'”
The BCCP ran 56 candidates in the 2013 election. They failed to win a seat and took less than five per cent of the popular vote.
Brooks admits there's a huge challenge ahead of him, but he's optimistic. He points to the results of the recent federal election, in which Justin Trudeau's Liberals decisively ousted Stephen Harper's Conservatives, and the historic Alberta election in May, in which the Alberta NDP took power for the first time from the long-governing Progressive Conservatives, as evidence that Canadians aren't afraid of changing the status quo.
“It's important for conservatives to unite right now and get behind a conservative brand and start building an alternative for 2017,” Brooks says, adding the party wants to have a platform out for British Columbians to look at far in advance of the 2017 election.
“The Conservatives are listening,” is Brooks' message to British Columbians.
“We're going to start recruiting [candidates] quickly in the new year. People who have political interests and want to become a candidate, contact us.”