From top left: BC NDP MLA Harwinder Sandhu, BC Conservative candidate Dennis Giesbrecht, BC Libertarian Party candidate Robert Johnson, and Independent candidate Kevin Acton.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED

OPINION

BC isn’t just flirting with the Conservatives, this is a courtship that will inevitably end in marriage.

We’ll be going back to the polls before you know it and the Conservatives will win.

They’re already mobilizing.

Scott Anderson couldn’t wait 24 hours before broadcasting his ‘I-told-you-so’ to everyone he could find in Vernon-Lumby and chastising and debasing an independent candidate for putting his name on the ballot.

I can forgive the former Vernon councillor and current Conservative Party of Canada candidate hopeful for taking some personal ownership in the fortunes of the BC Conservative party since it wouldn’t exist without him. He kept that ship afloat through oblivion until it caught lightning in a bottle. But his onslaught was unseemly and gross.

Marshall Jones, managing editor

He attacked Lumby mayor Kevin Acton, who was one of the BC United candidates who was supposed to pack up shop because leader Kevin Falcon told him to.

Instead he ran a great campaign and came in third. Anderson’s presumption is that without him in the race, the Conservatives would be tied with the NDP in seats. Instead, the NDP’s Harwinder Sandhu won a second term and the NDP are most likely to form government.

On his Facebook page, Anderson accuses Acton of “not (being) ready for senior level politics”, lying about his intentions in running, “intentionally helping the NDP”, political cowardice, feeding the Conservatives a “poison pill”. Then in addendum, he accused Acton of being greedy by trying to get election expenses reimbursed by the province if he hit a 10% vote threshold.

“Enough to get his money and just enough to condemn BC to another term of Eby and the Greens.”

He's trying to make sure that any bona fide right-of-centre candidate looking for votes gets on board or gets out of the way.

Amelia Boultbee, handily elected for the Conservatives in Penticton-Summerland, piled on.

"If you really dig into the riding-by-riding results, we lost Steveston-Richmond and Vernon-Lumby because of these B.C. United / Independent candidates who had, frankly, no business running, and they ran and split the vote, and if they hadn't done that, we would have a Conservative majority government,” she told CBC. "Their own leader, Kevin Falcon, said, 'Step down. Stand down. Do the right thing for British Columbia, and let's all join together with the Conservatives to beat the NDP.”

This is how the right views things. It’s all pragmatism.

That’s why I could never be successful in politics. Morons like me worry about respecting democracy and good governance and such. Leave things better for whoever follows, you know?

Conservatives just do the things that win. Sort the rest out later.

Acton won’t be the only one they attack, he’s just the most convenient because the Conservatives lost there.

But before they blame Acton, they might consider how the party itself botched what was once a sure-thing riding for the BC right. They had plenty of time to find a local candidate. Several of them, including Acton and Anderson, volunteered.

Instead they parachuted in Dennis Giesbrecht. I don’t know much about Giesbrecht — does anyone? — except that he sure has a hard time getting elected where they know him best in Kamloops. But he’s loyal to the BC Conservative party… and they already had to find a place for Peter Milobar in Kamloops after he jumped from BC United, so Vernon is close enough, right?

Party first, voters second.

As you might imagine, it didn’t go over well. Anderson likes to make it sound like Acton created all the noise in the riding about the non-local candidate but it was more organic than that. Sure he fed some oxygen, but Anderson himself was concerned, even putting his own name forward if the party required it. Acton simply used what was already simmering in the riding.

It’s another theme among this popular new party. They don’t seem to care much about the communities they’re supposed to represent.

They sent Giesbrecht to Vernon-Lumby. New Kelowna MLAs Kristina Loewen and Tara Armstrong were ghosts in the campaign, and Armstrong was another parachute candidate with no connections here. Macklin McCall in West Kelowna wasn’t much better. Gavin Dew (Kelowna), Peter Milobar, Ward Stamer (Kamloops) and Boultbee are the only candidates trusted to engage during the campaign.

The rest are the leftover fringe in what was not long ago a fringe party. They're all about ideology. Loewen and Armstrong and Giesbrecht and McCall just want to be there to fire Bonnie Henry, boss teachers around, harass some gay kids and throw some druggies in jail. They don’t care about the ridings.

But yes, yes as I already acknowledged: I’m the moron. Because none of it really mattered.

Conservatives know that. They have no actual loyalties.

Just so long as it’s not the NDP.

This isn’t even really a criticism. It’s just an observation of why they will win.

Everyone knew what to do when Kevin Falcon dropped tools (well, almost everyone, tee hee). There wasn’t much fuss about burning the ships. They’ve done this dance before in BC, shuffling from ragged, battered old tent to whatever shiny new tent appeals to voters.

The left never sees the bigger picture, always fighting over the intrinsic differences. You didn’t see the Greens and NDP cooperating to stop a climate-change-denier from becoming premier, did we? Can you imagine the NDP pulling out of a federal election to bolster the Liberals to stop Maxime Bernier if it looked like he might win? HA HA.

Locally, the NDP appeared almost as cynical.

Krystal Smith was the candidate in my riding. Again. She said nothing throughout the entire campaign. Again. The NDP couldn’t find a real candidate. Again. Etc. Repeat.

Across the region, they selected more obscure candidates no one had ever heard of, except in Kelowna. Loyal Wooldridge and Anna Warwick-Sears were the best, most-qualified local NDP candidates I can recall in 30 years. Wooldridge benefited from a split with an independent, but was within 150 votes in a new riding.

Could David Eby have helped that by showing up in the riding for more than a venti Starbucks latte? Could they have spent maybe a few more resources here?

If there was any election in which they could steal a seat in Kelowna, this was it. It wouldn’t last long but think about the moral gains for that base. To have a seat in the Bennetts’ backyard? A riding in Christy Clark’s “home of free enterprise”?

Nope, not to be.

My guess is the NDP will battle the Greens over some wedge issue no one really cares about like proportional representation that will force an election. And the NDP won’t have enough time to finally make some gains on literally anything to make a difference when the next votes are counted.

Meanwhile, the big money influences that forced Falcon and BC United out will work to replace Rustad and tidy up the weak links like Loewen and Armstrong and McCall before they force an election.

And we’ll do it all again.

Kevin Acton fought back and defended himself well against Anderson on Anderson’s Facebook page.

Anderson’s a bully himself, but the sycophants who follow him are even worse. It was never going to go well.

But for a taste of just how off-side this defector was, here’s what Acton told the CBC about his role in Vernon-Lumby.

"The reality is more than 4,000 people put their faith in me, and likely they didn't want the far-right or the left that was offered to them,” he said. "I'm sure Dennis is just hating me right now, but the reality is this province is supposed to be about a democracy and not election engineering."

He should have reminded Anderson how he helped elect Sandhu in 2020, when Anderson's BC Conservative candidate Kyle Delfing split the vote, clearing her way.

But back then Anderson was likely more concerned about “choices” and “democracy” and not election engineering.

I should have screenshotted Acton’s response, it was good.

But when I returned, his comment was deleted.

It wasn’t even up for six hours.

They got him.

That’s how I know nothing will stand in their way now.

— Marshall Jones is the Managing Editor of iNFOnews.ca

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