Geoff Russ: Conservatives exist in B.C., even if that shocks Globe and Mail writers

The Conservative Party of British Columbia has elected a conservative leader, and people are pretending to be stunned. 

Take Glacier Media journalist Rob Shaw, who argued that newly elected leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay has inherited a party with major internal tensions. There certainly are tensions, as there are in any party, but they are not apocalyptic by any means. 

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The Globe and Mail’s Gary Mason has taken things a bit further and declared that Findlay’s mantra of “faith, family and freedom” makes the party liable to become “MAGA North.” Assuming Mason is not writing in bad faith, it is incredible that mainstream conservative slogans are being portrayed as some sort of exotic extremism from the bowels of Alabama. 

Shaw, at least, is worth engaging with because he seems to pay attention to caucus politics. Findlay won by a hair, 51–49 over Caroline Elliott on the final ballot, in a five-candidate race that generated more than 25,000 ballots. A divided, deeply competitive leadership race is not the same as a broken party by any means. Doug Ford barely prevailed over Christine Elliott, no relation, in the 2018 Ontario Progressive Conservative (PC) leadership race, and his party has remained intact ever since. 

Those who fell short in the leadership race have given no indication that they will rebel, start a breakaway party, or encourage their supporters to do so. Caroline Elliott, Yuri Fulmer, Iain Black, and Peter Milobar have all publicly congratulated Findlay. Milobar, the only elected MLA among them, has stated that he will not be going anywhere, despite having some blowups with Findlay on the campaign trail. Elliott and Fulmer also had their fair share of mutual animosity over who was more conservative than the other. Again, none of this is a sign that anyone will lead a party split. 

For reasons that are not obvious, The Globe and Mail still has Mason as its go-to scribe for seemingly all of Western Canada. His accusation that the B.C. Conservatives have evolved into “MAGA North” has not resolved that ambiguity. 

“Faith, family, freedom” is not a MAGA slogan by any stretch. Rather, these are the words that have broadly defined English-speaking conservatism for more than a generation. It is the language of Margaret Thatcher, Stephen Harper, and others, who prized lower taxes, law and order, and socially conservative value. It will be interesting to see how this familiar conservative language plays out in 2026, coming from Findlay, who is a far more reliable conservative than former B.C. Conservative leader John Rustad ever was. 

Furthermore, why should the Conservative Party of B.C. not be conservative? It is not exactly a secret that the party was revived in the first place to offer a right-of-centre alternative to the mushy, centrist B.C. Liberals and the left-wing New Democratic Party (NDP). That may annoy former B.C. Liberal power brokers and their acolytes, but it is not evidence that the B.C. Conservatives are some sort of radical party. 

Rumours of a revived B.C. Liberal Party now abound, with people talking up the mythical centrist vote that could power an ideologically shapeless party back to power. In the last provincial election, B.C. was split rather clearly between a B.C. Conservative Party that won 44 seats and an NDP government that won 47, with nearly identical shares of the popular vote. 

The assumption underpinning a revived centrist vehicle is that its votes would come at the expense of the B.C. Conservatives, drawing in federal Liberal voters who are politically homeless in BC.  

If a new centrist party emerges, it is far more likely to cut the centre-left vote in half than the BC Conservative base. Both the federal Liberals and the B.C. NDP depend on urban voters in the Lower Mainland. With a revived Liberal-lite party, the NDP would suddenly be fighting a two-front war, not the B.C. Conservatives. 

On the other hand, the B.C. Conservatives would benefit greatly. Since 2018, Doug Ford’s Ontario PC government has enjoyed the progressive infighting between the Ontario Liberals and the Ontario NDP, as the two centre-left parties keep splitting the vote. As for voters on the right, the B.C. Conservatives have already experienced a small fissure with the rise of OneBC, but remain competitive or ahead of the NDP in the polls.  

The B.C. NDP needs federal Liberal voters far more than the B.C. Conservatives do, especially in ridings on the North Shore and in inner Vancouver. 

Kerry-Lynne Findlay is not alarming to voters because she likes the phrase “faith, family and freedom,” which most B.C. Conservatives believe in, as do many swing voters in immigrant ridings.  

To say that this is some sort of American ideological invasion led by “MAGA North” is to view B.C. politics through a cracked American mirror.

National Post