British Columbia’s official opposition, BC United, continues to bleed support to the provincial Conservatives.
This time the struggling party lost a candidate to the BC Conservatives as the fledgling party positions itself as the main competitor to the BC NDP.
On Wednesday, former District of Sechelt councillor Chris Moore abandoned BC United to run as a BC Conservative after multiple BC United MLAs ditched the party for the Conservatives.
The BC Conservatives celebrated Moore’s decision to join the party.
“Chris has an outstanding record of service to this community and will be a strong advocate for the people of Powell River-Sunshine Coast,” said BC Conservative Leader John Rustad.
Moore said that the BC Conservatives are the only way that the BC NDP would be displaced in the coming provincial election.
“I believe that the NDP have done little to address serious problems such as affordability, crime and healthcare,” said Moore.
“I believe the BC Conservatives under the leadership of John Rustad are the only way we can get BC back on track.”
Moore marks another prominent BC United member to defect from the party and join the BC Conservatives, along with MLAs Lorne Doerkson and Elenore Sturko.
In a statement released by BC United, the party claims that Moore had disagreed with BC United attempting to compete against the BC Conservatives and how they’ve criticized the rival centre-right party.
“Chris had fundamental differences with BC United in terms of not competing against the BC Conservatives and defending BC United from criticisms levied by political opponents,” reads BC United’s post on X.
“Additionally, Chris felt that BC United releasing factual information on extremist candidates within John Rustad’s BC Conservatives would hurt his chances of winning his own seat, which has been held by the NDP since 2005.”
After the BC Conservatives had recruited former MLA Sturko to join their party, BC United assembled a nine-page document to attack Sturko’s crossing of the floor, trying to frame the lesbian MLA as opportunistic for joining an “anti-LGBTQ+ rights” party.
The upcoming BC election will be held on Oct. 19 of this year.
The polling aggregation site 338Canada currently projects the BC NDP winning a majority government, with the BC Conservatives forming a solid official opposition, and BC United losing all of their legislative seats.
