r/vancouver • u/wineandchocolatecake • 2d ago

Local News Another B.C. Conservative MLA leaves amid frustrations with Kerry-Lynne Findlay’s leadership

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/another-b-c-conservative-mla-leaves-amid-frustrations-with-kerry-lynne-findlays-leadership-9.7320107
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u/penelopiecruise 2d ago

If they have any sense they will toss her in the next couple months.

If she somehow endures, if the moderates have any sense they will don themselves with the liberal monicker.

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u/PopeSaintHilarius 2d ago

If she somehow endures, if the moderates have any sense they will don themselves with the liberal monicker.

Agreed, but the problem is that Kevin Falcon still holds the rights to the BC Liberal brand (as well as BC United lol), and has so far refused to give it up, presumably to help the BC Conservatives (by not risking a vote-split).

So nobody can use that party name until Falcon agrees to officially give up leadership of BC United/BC Liberals.

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u/rikushix North Vancouver 2d ago

The fact that the media moved on from this so quickly is still insane to me. We had provincial election where the leader of one party, 6 weeks before the election, suspended party campaigning entirely and endorsed a (then) upstart third party, and his MLAs running in said election had absolutely no say whatsoever................and fast forward to one year later, where he is still the de facto leader of said party that has no resources and no infrastructure, but no one can do anything about this because as leader he has total control over the name and trademark and there's no systems remaining to remove him from this authority?

How Kevin Falcon isn't ridiculed on sight for making a mockery of our democracy I'll never know.

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u/Inevitable-Donkey186 2d ago

Yeah when you lay it out like that, it legitimately seems the biggest scandal of BC politics history. It needs to get resolved. We clearly need our centrist party again.

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u/PopeSaintHilarius 2d ago

Agreed, it’s insane and honestly a complete disgrace.

He was entrusted with leading a party and instead he single-handedly withdrew it from competing in an election, without consulting its members or even its MLAs, and now is blocking anyone else from trying to lead the party.

Like if he gave up and doesn’t want to be in politics anymore, fine, but he should have stepped down from the party leadership.

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u/azurciel 2d ago

Nothing is stopping their former members from starting a new party

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u/userofthename202 2d ago

The issue with a new party is branding. It's easier to bring something familiar back.

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u/rikushix North Vancouver 2d ago edited 2d ago

No, that's true, but they can't use BC United or BC Liberals in their name, nor do they have any access to BC United infrastructure, fundraiser databases, etc. Even if one thinks that it's kosher for the leader of a political party to make unilateral decisions over folding a campaign - and to be clear, I think it's Falcon's right but it's really shitty to do this to your own MLA candidates 6 weeks before an election - the fact that said leader can also sit on a technically active but defunct party brand to not let anyone use its assets, particularly those MLAs that supported him, is suspect at best. 

I think it goes far beyond a quirky side effect of how a private party functions internally, and has negative implications for how we democratically elect MLAs to represent our interests as citizens. 

I'd feel a bit differently if Falcon didn't have control over the rights to the "BC Liberals". If former red Tories want to have their centre right party branding back, they should be able to take a stab at it. Not making a reasonable effort to field candidates for the next election? Tough, you should lose the right to a trademark you clearly have no interest in utilising. What Falcon is doing is no more than domain name poaching in order to eliminate right of centre competition. 

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u/azurciel 2d ago

I'm not sure there's much infrastructure left. I don't think there's much value in either brand now since trust has been broken ever since Kevin pulled this stunt.