BC United candidates ponder futures

Emotions still raw over leader ending campaign

- DIRK MEISSNER

B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad, right, and BC United Leader Kevin Falcon said Wednesday that BC United candidates will be pooled under the Conservative banner ahead of nominations.

Emotions were still raw at the British Columbia Legislature on Thursday, after the bombshell announcement that the Official Opposition BC United would not contest the fall election.

At least one BC United staff member was in tears as she walked into the legislature.

Veteran members and neophyte nominees alike ended their candidacies, expressing various degrees of shock and enthusiasm over Wednesday’s stunning developments that had thrown their political plans into disarray.

Other incumbent BC United legislators and candidates who had been expecting to run under the party’s banner on Oct. 19 face a shakeup after Leader Kevin Falcon’s surprise decision to withdraw their nominations, urging voters to instead support one-time rival, the B.C. Conservative Party.

The Conservatives had been surging in the polls while BC United languished far behind despite the party’s Official Opposition status, raising the prospects of vote-splitting on the centre-right, that triggered Falcon’s drastic move.

BC United candidates would instead be pooled under the Conservative banner, Falcon and Conservative Leader John Rustad said on Wednesday, with nominations to be reassessed in light of the deal between the two leaders.