'Nobody knows who the BC Conservatives are': How Kevin Falcon's BC United got it wrong

How quickly things can change in politics.

It was November 15, 2023 when Kelowna10 asked Kevin Falcon, leader of BC United, how he felt about the calculated political gamble, taken earlier in the year, of changing the name from BC Liberal Party.

"Not great," Falcon quipped, before quickly adding "no, I'm just kidding."

(Watch the video).

Polling had revealed the new name was failing to catch on, while also showing many people leaning towards the unheralded BC Conservative Party.

Nine months later, at a shock joint news conference earlier this week, all the smiles were gone. Falcon's official opposition party were effectively dead politically, while dozens of BC United MLAs and scores of candidates for the October provincial election are pondering what, if any, future they have.

This week's extraordinary announcement saw Falcon suspend his party's election campaign and encourage supporters to get behind John Rustads' Conservatives to ensure the centre-right vote in BC would not be split ahead of an attempt to dislodge the governing NDP.

But in November last year it was a very different and optimistic Falcon.

“None of us should be surprised that eight months after changing our name, a lot of British Columbians are still unaware of who B.C. United is, they don’t realise we’re the former B.C. Liberal party,” Falcon said on that Nov.15, 2023 morning. “But I do promise you this, by the time the next election rolls up people will figure that out.”

Falcon said no one was paying attention to provincial politics at that time and suggested polling questions to the public about which party they support were being asked at a time of voter confusion.

“A lot of the voters are confused between the federal Conservatives and the BC Conservatives. Nobody knows who the B.C. Conservatives are,” he said. “They [the public] are actually talking about Pierre Poilievre and naturally say they support conservatives.”

How the political landscape has changed - seismically - in the months since those comments from Falcon. In recent times several BC United MLAs defected to the BC Conservatives, amid an ongoing bitter spat between the leaders and a gross misreading by BC United that people didn't know the difference between provincial and federal Conservatives.

It's an extraordinary and rapid turn of events for both men. It was Falcon who dismissed Rustad from the BC Liberal fold in August 2022 for saying climate change was not caused by carbon dioxide. Now Falcon is gone and Rustad is still standing, looking to make a far closer race of things against the NDP come the October election. Before Falcon's capitulation the centre-right vote split looked like handing the New Democrats a comfortable election win.

Earlier this week - about 24 hours before the shock media conference that signaled the end of BC United's presence in the fall election - Falcon was asked how the party's rebranding from BC Liberal to BC United was going.

"Spectacularly," he said with a wry laugh, before adding "obviously, I think it could have gone way better."

Like nine months ago, Falcon couldn't resist having a chuckle about the rebrand. But a day later the enormity of the failed gamble hit hard. At times the media conference with Rustad resembled more requiem than joyous hope for the future.

Supporters of BC United or BC Liberal (whatever you want to call them), have no horse in October's race and it remains to be seen how many of them will find joining the Rustad stable palatable.

With files from The Canadian Press