TRUE BLUE TROUBLE
Liberals fear split vote
As the provincial campaign entered the final week, the B.C. Liberals launched a broadside against Conservative Leader Trevor Bolin, his party's candidate in North Peace River.
“B.C. Conservative leader must address harassment,” read the headline on Saturday's media release, summarizing a WorkSafeBC finding against a Burger King franchise owned by Bolin.
A female employee of the Fort St. John- based outlet had complained about sexual harassment after a team leader said “I want to f … you.”
Soon after, the woman was fired for what the employer claimed was “disrespectful and unco-operative behaviour.”
The WorkSafe investigation found the employer, Bolin, guilty of taking discriminatory action against the woman.
“The facts before me lead to the conclusion that the employer's motivations for terminating the worker has a causal connection to her reporting bullying and harassment,” wrote the investigating officer.
The Liberals called on the Conservative leader to explain himself. Bolin replied two hours later with a release of his own.
He disputed the Liberal reading of the case.
The woman was fired not because she complained, but because she later shouted at a manager and demanded action. Still, he conceded she should not have been fired.
“I have since realized that her lashing out was a sign for me to find out the root issues, and work with her to overcome them,” he wrote.
Having said that, he accused the Liberals of “an attempt to smear my campaign” by releasing a report in the middle of an election on an incident that happened two years ago.
Peace River North has been solidly in the B.C. Liberal column through 20 years and five provincial elections. Dan Davies, the Liberal incumbent, won with 66 per cent of the vote in 2017.
But Bolin is a well-known realtor and business leader in Fort St. John. He's also a 12-year veteran of city council, though still only 41 years old.
He's cast himself as the lone fiscal conservative in the current election.
His big-ticket promise is to get rid of the carbon tax supported by the three major parties.
Besides Bolin, the Conservatives are running 18 other candidates, 14 of them in ridings held by Liberals when the legislature was dissolved.
Hence the shots coming his way from Liberals fearing vote splitting on the centre right.
“The Conservative party needs to decide whether it's worth splitting the vote to try to do their very best to elect the NDP,” Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson recently told Bhinder Sajan of CTV.
“The threat is real,” says Mary Polak, a former cabinet minister who served as Liberal house leader in the last legislature.
“The threat is not so much the Conservatives taking a seat — the numbers just don't bear that out,” Polak told Jennifer Saltman of The Vancouver Sun last week. “In a closer race, the B.C. Conservatives could mean the difference between a B.C. Liberal or a B.C. NDP majority and that's a pretty big impact.”
Exhibit A being what happened in Courtenay-Comox in 2017, a result likely to haunt Polak's party for a generation.
A Conservative candidate, one of only a handful running in the election, took 2,201 votes in Courtenay-Comox.
The Liberals lost the seat to the NDP by just 189 votes and with it lost their legislative majority.
Ironically, the riding isn't one where the Conservatives are fielding a candidate this time.
But Bolin's party could make a good showing in Langley East, where the candidate is Ryan Warawa, son of the late federal Conservative MP Mark Warawa.
The party is also trying to capitalize on the Liberals' clumsy handling of their nomination in Chilliwack.
Liberal Leader Wilkinson initially suggested there would be an open contest for the nomination against John Martin, one of the party's weaker incumbents.
Diane Janzen, a former candidate for the federal Liberals, was lining up to go for it. At the last minute, the Liberals froze her out, so now she's running for the Conservatives.
Another wild card is Chilliwack-Kent, where socially conservative incumbent Laurie Throness broke with the Liberals last week after comparing publicly funded contraceptives to eugenics.
He's now running as an Independent, saying voters “deserve a viable small `c' conservative MLA who is unafraid of the freedoms of speech and religion, who embraces the thousands of social conservatives in this riding as well as social liberals and who advocates free market and affordable government solutions to public policy issues.”
“I'm in it to win it,” says Throness, whose name remains on the ballot as a B.C. Liberal because the ballots were already printed when he switched to Independent.
If he does win, one could imagine him switching his party affiliation to Conservative, particularly if that party were able to elect at least one other member as well.
Two members would be enough to give the Conservatives official party status, under the legislative rule change made to accommodate the Greens.
Party status means extra resources and a salary top-up for the leader and other functionaries. It also means a seat in the debates in the next election.
The New Democrats have long hoped for a split on the centre-right to counterbalance their own split with the Greens. The Liberals have successfully kept the Conservatives at bay in election after election.
But with party unity already fraying during a lacklustre campaign, the Liberals may not be able to stifle the possibility this time around.
If (Independent candidate Laurie Throness) does win, one could imagine him switching his party affiliation to Conservative, particularly if that party were able to elect at least one other member as well.