British Columbia Conservative Party

The British Columbia Conservative Party is a conservative political party in British Columbia, Canada. Its current leader is Wilf Hanni.

Founding of the BC Conservative Party

The BC Conservative Party, (known as "the Tories"), was created by Sir Richard McBride in 1903. McBride believed that the system of non-partisan government that the province had been using was unstable and inhibiting development. When the lieutenant-governor of the province dissolved the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia and called an election, McBride announced that he would form a party to contest the election. His Conservatives won British Columbia's first election fought on the party system on 3 October 1903 with a two-seat majority. McBride became Premier of the province. The Tories implemented a policy along the lines of those of the national Conservative Party, which at the time favoured government intervention to help develop industry and infrastructure.

The Conservatives under McBride, and his successor William John Bowser, held power for thirteen years until they were defeated by the Liberals in the 1916 election.

The Tories returned to power in the 1928 election under Simon Fraser Tolmie, the last time the Conservatives would form a majority government in the province. The Tolmie government was unable to deal with the Great Depression, and was wracked by infighting and indecision. The party was in such disarray that, despite being in power, the Conservative provincial association decided not to run any candidates in the 1933 election.

In the election of 1941, the Conservatives managed to win 12 seats, compared to 21 for the Liberals and 14 for the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF, which became the New Democratic Party in 1961). The Liberals and Conservatives formed a coalition government. The business community feared the growing strength of the democratic socialist CCF, and supporters of both the Liberals and the Tories argued that a united free market party was needed to keep the CCF from taking power.

The BC Progressive Conservative Party

The tensions between Conservative and Liberal factions mounted over time, and after ten years, the coalition disintegrated. The Conservatives refounded their party in 1951 calling themselves the "Progressive Conservatives" as the federal party had adopted the "progressive" prefix in 1942.

W. A. C. Bennett, a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA), ran for the leadership of the Tories and lost. Bennett had been elected and re-elected as a BC Conservative MLA in the 1941, 1945, and 1949 provincial elections. After losing the BC Conservative leadership, Bennett left the party and joined the small Social Credit League, becoming its leader. Bennett dropped the party's social credit monetary reform policy, and adopted a populist conservative platform.

The coalition government, whose raison d'etre had been to keep the CCF out of power, had introduced an instant-runoff voting system for the 1952 election in the hope that Conservatives and Liberal supporters would list the other party as their second choice and keep the CCF out of power.

This worked to the benefit of Social Credit, who were able to take advantage of divisions between the Liberals and Conservatives, as well as the desire for change. Bennett's party was able to win a slim minority government with 19 Social Credit MLAs compared to 18 CCFers, one Labour, six Liberals, and four Tories.

It was clear to those who wanted to keep the CCF out of power that only the Social Credit Party would be able to accomplish that task. In the 1953 election, Liberal and Tory supporters transferred their support to Bennett's party, sweeping it to power with 28 out of 48 seats. Having a majority government the Social Credit government changed the electoral system back to first past the post in order to cement their base. Social Credit became, in effect, the new centre-right coalition party, and both the Liberals and the Tories became marginalised.

The Progressive Conservatives won only four seats in 1952, one in 1953, and were completely shut out of the legislature between 1956 and 1972 as conservative-minded voters moved to Social Credit. The Tories managed to win two seats in the 1972 election, and one in the 1975 election. The last BC Conservative MLA elected was Victor Albert Stephens -- in a 1978 Oak Bay by-election.

The BC Conservative Party (again)

In 1991, the party changed its name back to the BC Conservative Party. It was unable to take advantage of the collapse of Social Credit that year.

It later discussed with four other conservative parties to form the British Columbia Unity Party, but that coalition soon fell apart, and the BC Conservative Party remained as a separate entity.

On September 1, 2004, BC Unity and the BC Conservatives announced an Agreement-in-Principle (AIP) for the two parties to merge under the Conservative Party name.

On 18 September 2004, the delegates in attendance at the BC Conservative Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Burnaby voted 24-13 to ratify the Agreement-in-Principle signed by party leader Barry Chilton, but this did not attain the 2/3 vote required to pass. A new board of directors was elected at the AGM. A new president, Bill Smith, was elected on a promise to support the merger vote, but immediately after his election, refused to allow a motion by members of the new board to accept the majority vote on the AIP. The merger deal, therefore, fell through.

For the October 28, 2004 Surrey-Panorama Ridge by-election, the party nominated David James Evans as its candidate. Evans finished in fourth place with 2.19% of the vote -- behind Green Party Leader Adriane Carr, and ahead of Reform BC President Shirley Abraham.

The party nominated seven candidates in the 2005 election, who won a total of 9,623 votes, 0.55% of the provincial total. None were elected. Two candidates, Colin Black in Okanagan-Vernon, and Beryl Ludwig in Shuswap, won over 2,000 votes each. Black won over 11.56% of the vote in his riding, while Ludwig won 9.92%. Both Black and Ludwig finished in third place.

2006 leadership convention

The BC Conservative 2005 Annual General Meeting was held in Vernon on September 24, 2005. and subsequent to the AGM, a board meeting was held to appoint former Reform BC Leader Wilf Hanni as Interim Leader. A BC Conservative Leadership and Policy Convention was held in Kamloops on March 18, 2006 - where Hanni was acclaimed as the permanent Leader of the BC Conservatives.

See also: British Columbia Conservative Party leadership election, 2006

Election results

• In the November 2, 1933 election, because of internal discord, the provincial executive of the Conservative Party decided not to contest the election officially; each local association was to act on its own. Some candidates ran as straight Independents, some as Independent Conservatives; those supporting the premier, Simon Fraser Tolmie, ran as Unionists; and those grouped around William John Bowser, a former premier, ran as Non-Partisans. When Bowser died and the election in Vancouver Centre and Victoria City was postponed, 4 Non-Partisans and 2 UPBC candidates withdrew.

• Note: In the 1945 and 1949 elections, the Conservatives ran in a coalition with the Liberal Party.

• In the 1952 and 1953 elections, British Columbia employed a preferential ballot.

• After 1953, British Columbia returned to the "first past the post" electorial system.

See also

• List of British Columbia political parties
• List of British Columbia premiers
• List of British Columbia general elections

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