B.C. Liberals to rebrand at convention
Wilkinson says party will replace slogan and logo with ‘new look and new style and content’
VICTORIA — The B.C. Liberal party, once the province’s dominant political force, will get a new coat of paint this weekend as it slowly readjusts to life in opposition.
The party will unveil a “renewed brand identity” at its first convention since losing power following the 2017 election. The rebrand won’t involve a new party name — an idea the Liberals debated and rejected in 2014 — but will replace the party slogan of “Today’s B.C. Liberals” and logo with a “new look and new style and content,” said leader Andrew Wilkinson.
“Every organization has to refresh itself both in terms of the look and in terms of the content,” Wilkinson told Postmedia News. “We’ve got a very active policy development process that will be highly visible in the convention.”
The Liberals won the most number of seats in the May 2017 election under then premier Christy Clark, but lost a subsequent confidence vote and were toppled from government by a power-sharing deal between the B.C. NDP and B.C. Greens.
The Liberal convention, which begins Friday, promises to be a markedly different affair than previous party gatherings.
Gone are the days of a party war chest flush with corporate donations stacked up over years in power, where conventions served more as victory parties than policy debates or campaign strategy sessions. Instead of booking Science World for a private party like in 2016, or renting a mechanical bull to entertain guests like in Kelowna in 2014, Friday’s party convention is being billed as a more roll-up-your-sleeves opposition-style affair with the tag line “winning takes work.”
“I think you’re going to see a candid acknowledgment from Andrew and others that as much as we’re proud to have won a bunch of elections in a row through the 2000s, our vote share declined in each of those elections,” said party executive director Emile Scheffel, who has the new tag line tattooed onto his arm.
“We need to take a hard look at those loss of votes over time, and what to do to reverse that trend.”
The convention will be the first for Wilkinson since he was elected party leader in February. He won’t face any type of leadership vote during the weekend, but a major confidence test is on the horizon for Nov. 8 when he debates the proportional representation referendum with Premier John Horgan on live television.
“With a new leader, any organization has to find its new space in people’s minds and that will be not only the convention itself but also the debate with John Horgan next Thursday, so we can form impressions in people’s minds of what we stand for and who we are,” said Wilkinson.
Wilkinson faces several immediate challenges inside the party. The NDP government’s law to ban corporate and union donations has changed the landscape of political fundraising, and will force Liberal members who may have relied on corporate backers to instead work harder to dig up the new $1,200 maximum individual donations.
“Political parties run on members, messages and money,” said Wilkinson. “And all of those are changing.”
The Liberals spent 16 years in government, where Scheffel said policy debates at party conventions were often limited by the fiscal restraints of the government’s budget. “You tend to become risk adverse to grassroots feedback,” he said. “We’re trying to really restore and revive and increase the role of the average B.C. Liberal party member in everything the party does.”