EDITORIAL – ‘Dear Mel, the BC Conservatives can’t do it without you’

An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.

THE BC CONSERVATIVES are in terrific shape. Just ask them.

Various of its MLAs are assuring us the caucus is united. The party communications department continues to pour out news releases about policy, ranging from the drug trade to DRIPA to mineral staking and jobs.

The new interim leader, Surrey-White Rock MLA Trevor Halford, tells us he leads a “focused, disciplined and ready” caucus,.

And, by the way, the leadership race is going to be fantastic. “The next chapter.” I’ve been invited to help.

“Leadership races are exciting for political parties and the Conservative Party of BC has never truly had one before,” party president Aisha Estey wrote me — “Dear Mel” — in an email.

“With your help, we will get back to the basics of being a Conservative Party. We will fight for your freedom, including private property rights. We will fight to stop crime and the handing out of free drugs and we will restore common sense to our province.”

And my donation would “go directly toward funding our internal operations to ensure we run the smoothest, fairest, and most open leadership race we can. We can’t do it without you.”

If that’s true, they’re going to fail, because I’ve never been a member of a Conservative party at any level at any time. And, no offense, I won’t start now as I prefer neutrality.

It’s good to know, though, that everyone in the party thinks fondly of the just-departed leader John Rustad.

Halford thanked Rustad or his “tremendous leadership and stewardship” of the party, praising him for working “tirelessly to champion common-sense government and built a movement that we can now take forward to defeat the NDP. Our entire caucus is grateful for the sacrifices he has made for this team for this province.”

And Estey wrote, “I want to thank John for building this party and movement. He made history by taking us this far.”

This, of course, is the same caucus that stabbed Rustad in the back — check that, it was very much head on. One can hear “Et tu, Brute” echoing from the caucus room.

For some reason, media commentators aren’t seeing things through the same rose-coloured glasses as the party brass is looking through. They talk of a party that is so full of members and MLAs with wildly divergent political viewpoints and aspirations that the leadership race is bound to be a gong show.

That sort of a political prognosticating is low hanging fruit on the tree of cynicism. It flows so easily from the pen. And, who knows, I suppose they could be right, but I hope not — this province needs a strong voice to shine a light on the multiple failures of the NDP, and the Conservative Party of BC is, at the moment, it.

Sure, things aren’t nearly as close to being perfect as the party stalwarts are bravely trying to tell us, but hopefully they aren’t so bad that the party can’t recover and carry on as an Opposition that raises tough questions.

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.