EDITORIAL – BC United needs much more than brackets on the ballot
BC Liberals back when they thought a name change was a good idea. (Image: BC Liberals)
An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.
“WILL A CHANGE in name make any difference to party fortunes? Will it truly help separate it from any perception that it’s just a provincial branch of the federal Liberals? Will voters take it as a sign the party is suddenly new and fresh?
“Not likely. Party members can call themselves anything they like, but if they expect a party of old-time veteran politicians who have been around for years to suddenly be bright and shiny by putting on new clothes, they’ll likely be disappointed.”
I wrote those words in September 2022 before the BC Liberals officially changed their name to BC United and I’d brag that I told you so, but a lot of other people were saying something similar.
Now, BC United wants to add “(formerly BC Liberals)” or something similar in brackets when the ballots are printed for the October provincial election. Why? Because people are confused about who and what the party is.
Wait a minute. Wasn’t the whole purpose of the name change to unconfuse the voters, to make sure they didn’t confuse the party with the unpopular federal Trudeau Liberals. But now, it seems they don’t know what BC United is all about. In an internal party poll, 30 per cent didn’t even know the name had been changed.
If that’s the case among members, one can imagine that the number is even higher among the general public.
Kamloops-North Thompson MLA Peter Milobar knows the problem.
“There’s no doubt that the surge of the federal Conservative brand that we’ve seen, almost at the same time as when we changed our name provincially … no one could have seen that coming,” he told CBC News.
“So there is a worry about overall brand confusion out there. There are people who think we changed our name to the Conservatives.”
Party leader Kevin Falcon is squarely to blame, having insisted as he ran for the leadership that a name change was needed. The whole thing is now generally acknowledged as a botch.
Now, suddenly, instead of making people forget they used to be the BC Liberals, the party is now desperately trying to remind them of it. Will a couple of words in brackets on the ballot help matters?
As I said in September 2022: Not likely.
Mel Rothenburger is a former regular contributor to CFJC-TV and CBC radio, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, and a Webster Foundation Commentator of the Year finalist. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.
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Oddly, BC United divided themselves and sent a whole lot of moderate conservatives, greens, and liberals to uniting under the Conservative banner.
As far as setting themselves apart from the Feds, the ex Liberals didn’t do themselves any favours with their choices in the Kamloops municipal election. If you look at who they supported, it looks a lot like our local ex liberal MLAs were in lock step with the NDP as far as policy making in Kamloops, at least at the lower Council level (as opposed to the higher level of Mayor, which is a higher level of office than councillor , which our council supported by the ex liberals does not acknowledge ). This city council loooooooooooves NDP policies.
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I think the real question is, who cares?
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People think the BC Liberals turned into the CPBC? No they don’t. They know Conservative and they like it. The know BCU and they don’t like it…years of nothingburger opposition isn’t lost on anyone, least of all the MLAs jumping ship to a party that actually matters.
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One of the most significant unforced errors in BC provincial politics for quite some time. I understand not wanting to be affiliated with the sinking federal Liberal ship, but at the expense of torpedoing your own political party into the depths of the sea, never to be seen again? All over a name change to a football club?
OK…
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There are only so many right-wing votes to go around. Social Credit became the BCLiberals, the BCLiberals became BCUnited, and now the BC Conservatives are the new BCUnited.
I also think that those believing the NDP are going to top the October polls may be in for a shock. The NDP has turned off a lot of people due to their wild drug policies, their poor health performance, and their wishy-washy environmental record.
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I’ve always said the right-wing parties should start a new leftwing party and split the leftwing vote. :)
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Sometimes I wish there was a “laugh” emoji available on your blog. This is one of those times :-)
It’s too bad that egos got in the way when the BC Conservative party was recently formed, resulting in a right-wing vote split. Not that I’m right-wing, or support many of their policies, but the NDP have gone so far “left” I can’t relate to them anymore either.
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I always find it funny when politicians react in this way of ‘must be confusing the voter with branding’ and all the rest … because they did something, like change their party name.
“So there is a worry about overall brand confusion out there. There are people who think we changed our name to the Conservatives.” says our Mr. Milobar.
Ya … that’s just not a thing.
People with enough intellectual hoodzpah to vote at all … have enough lightbulb churning wattage to understand simple shifts in the political landscape … like party name changes.
Any confusion of this type will evaporate when they are looking at their ballot, and see Mr. Milobars and Mr. Stones name on it.
And no one … and I mean no one … thinks the BC Liberal party changed their name to the BC Conservative Party.
What is telling though is how incumbent, ‘old-time veteran politicians who have been around for years’ … are trying to rewrite the narrative to cast responsibility away from our own memories as to when the United … nee Liberal party was in power.
People remember very well, and its not a good memory.
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Utterly ridiculous, pathetic etcetera without a clear platform.
We need a party fiscally responsible, environmentally conscious, generally liberal philosophically speaking but with some common sense approach to some of the social silliness of late. We got nobody neither locally, provincially or federally.
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