ROTHENBURGER – Milobar’s epiphany – talk about changing horses mid-stream

PETER MILOBAR, BC Conservative. I’ll admit I was hoping for better from him.

I thought political principles might come into play. You know, the kind where you run for office, and accept the responsibility that comes with being elected, based on the values you hold.

But I suppose it all comes down to being just a job. Not for everyone, of course. Todd Stone decided it was better to retire. Jackie Tegart decided to retire. Shirley Bond decided to retire.

True, they might not have been offered candidacies by Conservative Party of BC leader John Rustad, so maybe they had no choice. Some, like Stone, have offered their support for the Conservatives anyway.

Peter Milobar, though, did have a choice. He could simply have said, “I’m BC United, a.k.a. BC Liberal, at heart. I believe in my party’s policies, which align with my own values. I’ve never been a fan of John Rustad and the BC Conservatives and I’m not going to suddenly switch my allegiance for the sake of trying to get elected again. Having a job in the Legislature isn’t that important.”

Instead, he accepted Rustad’s invitation. Maybe he’ll succeed in moderating some of the BC Conservative policies but, more likely, he’ll have to change some of his own.

Let’s take just one example of a policy that illustrates the point. Maybe it’s the most fundamental of all. John Rustad thinks climate change is “a theory.” It isn’t, he says, “an existential threat.”

Peter Milobar, on the other hand, believes in climate change. At least the things he’s on record as saying about it strongly suggest that. BC United certainly believed in it.

At one point, MLA Milobar was the opposition critic for Environment and Climate Change. He has said he believes in making plans to battle climate change.

“When I was mayor, we started to build and implement the sustainability plan,” he has said.

“It was one of the first ones in the province for a municipality to do. You know, did we meet the targets? No, we fell short and now it’s being re-looked at and revamped and new targets being set. You know, one could argue, if we didn’t have that document, though, would we have made the gains we did make, even though we fell short of the target?”

In another interview, he said, “Climate change needs to have two points of attack. We need to drive down our emissions by supporting innovation around the electrification of our society but we also have to start to take meaningful steps towards climate adaptations to adjust for the ever increasing and worsening floods and fires.”

And there was the time he said, “The reality is, climate needs action.”

Rustad? His views on climate change were the very reason Kevin Falcon kicked him out of the BC United caucus. “It is not at a crisis level,” he said just a few days ago. That happens to coincide with the BC Conservatives’ official policy on the matter.

Last week he said he doesn’t intend to change his views on climate science. In fact, he says the party won’t be moderating its policies at all. “As I have said all along, we are not changing our principles and the values that we stand for….”

At the time of Rustad’s departure from BC United, Falcon said, “Climate change is one of the most critical threats facing our future.” He added, a day or two later, that Rustad was exhibiting “a pattern of behaviour that was not supportive of our caucus team and the principles of mutual respect and trust.”

Fast forward to last week, and Falcon’s shocking announcement that BC United would stand down from the election campaign, and praising Rustad for being “gracious.”

Well, you get the picture. Milobar either must reconcile what he’s believed about climate change — and quite a few other policies to boot — with the BC Conservative position or, at the least, learn how to talk like a BC Conservative. Yet, he said yesterday he hasn’t changed his values. Rustad hasn’t changed his. Interesting times.

Milobar’s other option — to run as an independent — would have been a challenge but not impossible. At least a couple of others are doing it. But the best chance of staying in office is to hitch your wagon to the new kids in town, the Conservatives.

By the way, this talk about the Number One priority being to defeat the NDP no matter what is just so much blather. Should the NDP gain re-election, there may be some negative consequences but B.C. won’t sink into the Pacific Ocean.

Is defeating the NDP really important enough to abandon lifelong values?

Part of the job? Talk about changing horses in mid-stream.

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.