Stockwell Day made a point of posing for the Times’ camera before delivering a speech in support of B.C. Liberal candidate Linda Larson Wednesday. If you don’t let the media get a good picture, he told the audience, they will use an unflattering one. Photo by Richard McGuire.

 

 

Voting for the B.C. Conservatives will split the free enterprise vote and risk electing an NDP government, guest speaker Stockwell Day warned a B.C. Liberal audience of about 40 people in Osoyoos last week.
Day, who has long been active with conservative parties at both the federal and Alberta provincial levels, spoke at a luncheon April 10 to kick off B.C. Liberal candidate Linda Larson’s campaign in Boundary-Similkameen.
Local Conservative candidate Mischa Popoff, however, retorts that Day is wrong and any damage to the Liberals in Boundary-Similkameen is self-inflicted and is due to the way incumbent MLA John Slater was denied a chance to run again.
Day directed most of his speech to attacking the Conservatives and the NDP, saying little about what a Liberal government will do instead.
He acknowledged that not everything Premier Christy Clark’s government has done has been to his liking, but said that’s no reason to let an NDP government be elected.
“We need the coalition that’s offered by the B.C. Liberals to continue,” Day warned, saying the alternative is the “socialist” NDP and capital flight from the province.
“Vote splitting is a huge issue,” Day said in an interview afterwards. “You’ll have like-minded people putting votes on two different sides when those votes together could mean that you’ll see a B.C. Liberal elected.”
Day, who is touring the province to shore up Liberal candidates, served in the Alberta Progressive Conservative government of Ralph Klein in the 1990s before moving to Ottawa to head the Canadian Alliance Party in 2000.
After Stephen Harper took over that party and merged it to become the Conservative Party of Canada, Day stayed on as the federal MP for Okanagan-Coquihalla, later serving in Harper’s cabinet.
He retired from politics in 2011.
Conservative candidate Popoff, however, disputes Day’s claim that he is splitting the vote.
“Not in this riding, it’s not,” said Popoff. “Not after what the Liberals did to John Slater. Whatever happened, once you kicked a sitting member out, all bets are off. Stockwell Day is so wrong about that.”
Slater, the incumbent MLA in Boundary-Similkameen, was elected as a Liberal in 2009, but was informed by his party in January that he would not be allowed to run for them again due to “personal issues.”
A week later, the then NDP candidate Marji Basso also stepped aside for “personal reasons” on the same day Slater announced he would not seek re-election as an independent.
Popoff contrasted the way the NDP held an open nomination to replace Basso, but the Liberals simply appointed Larson without a nomination meeting.
On April 6, the NDP chose Sam Hancheroff as the candidate in the three-way contested nomination.
“I know some good Liberals who went to the meeting subsequent to John Slater’s ousting thinking they were going to get to vote on his replacement,” said Popoff. “Instead, they were told, ‘Here’s John’s replacement’ and they were not too happy about that.”
He compared the handpicking of Larson to “an old Jean Chrétien trick” referring to the way the former Liberal Prime Minister often appointed candidates, bypassing the wishes of constituency associations.
“The NDP went ahead and had a runoff,” said Popoff. “They had a healthy little debate there. If they could do it, why couldn’t the Liberals? That’s just crazy … anti-democratic.”
Day said he felt it was necessary to speak about the B.C. Conservatives because there is confusion on the part of some voters who think the B.C. and federal Conservatives are linked.
“There’s no linkage whatsoever,” Day said. “There’s no formal association. So I just like to make that point.”
The B.C. Conservatives are headed by John Cummins, who served in Harper’s federal Conservative government at the same time as Day.
“I’m talking to B.C. Conservatives every week who are leaving the B.C. Conservative Party and moving over to the Liberals,” said Day. “People are becoming aware that they (Conservatives) have little or no money, that they can’t form the government, but they can help the NDP form the government … I don’t want to throw away my vote in a way that would help the NDP get in.”
Popoff admits his party has little money and that it has little chance of forming the government this time, but says that’s always the case when new parties come along.
He compares his party to the B.C. Liberals under Gordon Wilson in 1991, which had no elected members.
Wilson performed well in the leader’s debate, and vaulted the Liberals into the official opposition, leaving Social Credit in a distant third place.
A decade later, in 2001, the Liberals under Gordon Campbell formed the government.
“I think that’s fair (to say) that we don’t have a chance of forming the government,” said Popoff. “We’re going to get our party in the door this time.”
Once the Conservatives have some elected MLAs, it will be easier to raise funds, he said.
While Popoff admits he would love to have 40 or 50 people come out to one of his meetings as came to Larson’s event, he said the low turnout was “deplorable” for an established party.
“That’s a sign right there of what may happen on May 14,” he said.