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The BC Conservatives want to replace the NDP. First, they have to decide what kind of conservative party they want to be.
That tension runs through my interview with Simon Fraser University political scientist Steven Weldon. Beneath the leadership turmoil and caucus disputes sits a struggle over priorities: economic growth and affordability, or the social issues that animate populist politics.
Those priorities can coexist, but they don’t always coexist comfortably. Weldon suggests thinking about politics along two dimensions.
On one, politicians compete over economic questions, including development and housing. On the other, they emphasize identity and social concerns, including immigration, crime and drugs. Conservatives can share economic views while disagreeing about which issues should dominate the conversation.
That helps explain why changing the leader does not settle the argument. The party still has to hold together supporters who want different things from it.
It also helps explain the temptation to present a moderate public face while retaining an appeal to social populists. Weldon sees conservative parties internationally wrestling with that calculation. How far can they push those messages before they drive other voters away?
I asked him about authoritarianism and comparisons with Donald Trump. His answer deserves attention. He cautions against treating the BC Conservatives as equivalent to Trump or assuming that every preference for strong leadership is undemocratic. Those distinctions help us understand what is happening.
Precision makes the analysis stronger. Labels alone tell us little about how a party would govern or which faction would shape its decisions once in office.
Then there is the NDP’s problem.
Voters get tired of governments. Weldon argues that fatigue can accumulate even when the opposition has problems of its own. A fractured conservative movement does not automatically give the governing party a free pass.
But being tired of the government is only the beginning of a political choice. What would its replacement actually do?
That is where Weldon wants the campaign debate to go. Platforms should reveal the differences between the parties and give voters something more concrete to assess than leadership personalities and internal feuds.
For me, that is the question worth keeping in view here: which priorities would a Conservative government turn into policy, and whose priorities would prevail when the factions disagree?
Watch our conversation above for Weldon’s explanation of the competing conservative camps, the appeal of social populism, and the limits of campaigning on voter fatigue alone.
