Online Encyclopedia
BC Liberal Party
The British Columbia Liberal Party is a provincial political party in British Columbia, Canada. The party has often remained seperate from the federal Liberal Party of Canada and is currently not formally linked to the federal party. At this point in time the party is probably best described as a coalition of many ideological groups, united by an opposition to the British Columbia NDP and favor bringing more free market reforms to the province.
Early History
From 1871 to 1903, British Columbia operated with a non partisan government. Party politics were only introduced in 1903 with the formation of the British Columbia Conservative Party. The Conservatives ruled the province until the Liberals were able to win the election of 1916 and form a government under Harlan Carey Brewster.
The best known of the BC Liberal Premiers was Thomas Dufferin Pattullo who was premier until from 1933 to 1941. He advocated the annexation of Yukon by BC and the construction of the Alaska highway .
This two party system was challenged with the rise of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in western Canada in the 1940s, and its successor the New Democratic Party of Canada (NDP).
The CCF first took power in Saskatchewan under Premier Tommy Douglas, and made major inroads in British Columbia. In order to block the rise of the socialist CCF, the Liberals and Conservatives formed a coalition government in 1941 when neither party had enough seats to form a majority government on its own.
John Hart (premier) was the Liberal leader and permier from 1941 to 1947. He became leader after Patullo refused to go into coalition with the Conservatives.
Hart was followed by Byron Ingemar Johnson, normally know as Boss Johnson, who was premier till tensions arose in the coalition due to the dominance of Liberals, and the coalition finally collapsed in 1951 when the Conservatives withdrew from the coalition. The Liberals held onto a minority government till 1952.
The 1952 Election:
In order to prevent the British Columbia CCF from being able to win in a three party competition, the government introduced the Single Transferable Vote with the expectation that Conservative would list the Liberals as their second choice and vice versa. What they had not counted on was what would happen with the CCF second preferences. Most CCF voters chose Social Credit ahead of the Liberals and the Conservatives.
When the dust had settled, the BC Social Credit League being defacto led by W.A.C. Bennett(he was not formally chosen as leader till after the election) was able to exploit this system, and emerged as the largest party when the ballots were counted in the 1952 general election. Voters were tired of both the Liberals and the Tories and were looking for alternatives.
The CCF tried to argue that with Tom Uphill , Labour MLA from the Kootenaies, they had has many seas as Social Credit but much more parilmentary experience than the Socreds and therefore should be allowed to govern. But WAC had forseen this had managed to get Uphills support for Social Credit.
With the CCF having only one seat less than Social Credit, and both the Liberals and Tories having only a handful of seats, it was Social Credit that emerged as the new party of choice for business and voters who wanted to keep the CCF out of power. In 1953, Bennett won a majority government. Bennett and the CCF both agreed that the experiment in increased vote choice needed to be shelved.
During this time the Liberals came under the leadership of Gordon Gibson Sr - the Bull Moose of the Woods. He has a cigar smoking gregarious logging contractor that could have been premier but for major political error. He was elected in 1953 for the Lillooet riding under the AV system. In 1955 the Sommers scandal surfaced and he was the only leader in the legislature to make an issue of it. WAC Bennett and his attorney general tried many dirty tricks to stop the information from coming out.
In frustration Gordon Gibson Sr resigned his seat and forces by-election hoping to make the Sommers scandal the issue. Unfortunately the voting system had changed and he came a close second Social Credit because the CCF choose to split the vote.
The Liberal were reduced to the third party of the house right through to the early 1970s taking about 20% of the vote in most elections.
Many supporters of the old Liberal and Conservative parties united under the umbrella of Social Credit. This coalition was able to keep the CCF/NDP out of power until the 1990s, with the exception of a three year period from 1972 to 1975 when the NDP formed a government under Dave Barrett. In 1972 David Anderson was leader and lead a potential revival till until most of his MLAs crossed the floor to Social Credit
Recent rebirth
The Social Credit party began to collapse in the late 1980s under the leadership of William Vander Zalm, who took the party in a social conservative direction. Vander Zalm was forced to resign due to a conflict of interest scandal.
During the 1991 provincial election, the ruling Social Credit Party disintegrated under Vander Zalm's successor, Premier Rita Johnston. Multiple Socred scandals had left many BC conservatives looking for another option. At this time, Gordon Wilson was the leader of the BC Liberal Party, and although his party had been practically non-existent in the polls, he insisted he be included in the televised debate between Premier Johnston and NDP Leader Michael Harcourt. The networks eventually agreed, and Wilson impressed many with his performance. The Liberal campaign suddenly gained tremendous momentum, and syphoned off a lot of support from the Socred campaign. In the end, the NDP won the election, but the Liberals came in second with 17 seats to the Socreds' 7. The Social Credit Party effectively died at that point. Gordon Wilson pushed to hae the formal link between the federal and provincial party ended
Gordon Wilson had a miracle in getting 17 Liberal MLAs elected, but did not have the skills to lead a caucus. Gordon Wilson was damaged by his affair with fellow Liberal MLA Judy Tyabji .
By 1993 the caucus was in open revolt against his leadership. To save the party a leadership race was announced and Gordon Wilson ran against former BC Liberal Leader Gordon Gibson and Vancouver Mayor Gordon Campbell for the leadership. Gordon Campbell was successful in his bid for leadership of the Liberals. Wilson and Tyabji left the Liberals and formed his own party, the Progressive Democratic Alliance, before ultimately accepting a cabinet position in the NDP government.
Under Campbell's leadership and the influence of supporters of the federal Canadian Alliance and former members of the BC Social Credit Party, the BC Liberal Party moved to the right of centre. Liberal Party of Canada supporters remained in the party and still hold the dominant role. The result is a party whose platform resembles that of conservative Democrats in the states of Washington or Oregon, but with Canadian distinctions, such as support for universal health care through increased financial support.
In 2001, Campbell beat the NDP and was elected Premier, the seventh premier in ten years. His government began a program of reducing the size of the provincial government, balancing the budget, and cutting or privatizing some social services.
Even though early fears of the government being too far to the right, policy wise the BC Liberal government has been almost indistinguishable from the is federal counterpart. This has lead to more and more grumbling by social conservatives in BC.
See also: