Brennan Day: B.C. conservatives, we need to get our act together

British Columbia does not need another summit to determine whether there is room for a serious free-enterprise political alternative in this province. They’ve held the meetings, seen the polling, heard from the strategists and endured enough Twitter threads to constitute cruel and unusual punishment. They’ve even held a “Triple O Summit” in the basement of a White Spot.

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As it stands, there are currently three free-enterprise parties in B.C., including the Conservatives, and parties being led by former party members. Now that Kerry-Lynne Findlay has resigned as B.C. Conservative leader, I think everyone’s on the same page. There is a problem. Now can we please get on with solving it?

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This is directed at everyone trying to figure out what comes next, myself included.

We need to get our act together.

The ridiculous part is that most of us agree on the important things. Government should live within its means. Prosperity has to be created before it can be redistributed. We want safe communities, functioning public services, private property protections, individual freedom and a province where people are rewarded for building something or creating a job.

Good people can disagree beyond that. That’s politics.

What we cannot do is create three versions of the same political project and arrive at the next election explaining why our fiscally responsible, socially reasonable, pro-resource party is completely different from those running the fiscally responsible, socially reasonable, pro-resource party next door.

While we do that, NDP Premier David Eby gets another free pass.

U.S. President Donald Trump handed the NDP the political gift of a lifetime. His threats and tariffs deserve condemnation. But he did not create our housing crisis, shortage of doctors, permitting problems or govern B.C. while mills closed.

Problems made in British Columbia need solutions made in British Columbia.

Forestry workers want mills running. Mining and construction need investment. Families want to afford a home, find a doctor and believe their kids can build a future here.

Nobody outside politics cares which operative won an argument on Twitter last Tuesday.

So enough.

The people building these organizations need to sit down together. And before anyone mistakes this for a B.C. Liberal reunion, it isn’t. The Conservative party needs a chair at the table, as do the new alternatives being built and people who understand how the old coalition held together people who didn’t agree on everything but agreed on enough to govern.

Nobody gets excluded because somebody else doesn’t like their jersey. That’s rather the point.

So here’s an offer. There’s a table. Actually, I’ve got a couple of folding ones if we’re tight on space.

Somewhere in the riding of Courtenay—Comox on Vancouver Island seems as good a place as any. It helped decide the government in 2017 and is far enough from Vancouver and Victoria that perhaps we can stop talking to ourselves for an evening.

Send people who have the confidence of their organizations and can make decisions. Don’t show up wearing the team jersey. Wear a Team Canada baseball hat, stick a B.C. flag pin on your shirt and bring an open mind.

Nobody is being asked to dissolve anything, join anything or endorse anybody. This isn’t a merger meeting. It’s a chance to answer one question honestly:

Are the things keeping us apart matters of principle, or matters of politics?

If they’re principles, let’s identify them. If they’re politics, let’s admit that too.

I’ll bring the Lucky Lager, craft beer for Vancouver, B.C. bubbly for the North Shore, Okanagan wine for the Interior and something strong enough to justify the drive from Prince George and Dawson Creek. Someone else can bring dinner.

If you want to represent British Columbians, you should already know the issues facing them. They want to know what we’re going to do about them.

And please, no communiqué announcing that we’ve agreed to keep talking about talking.

Start with the hard lines. What do we actually believe, and what isn’t negotiable? Then find the soft ones: the things reasonable people can disagree about without needing separate political parties.

Maybe the differences really are too large to bridge. Fine. British Columbians deserve to know what they are.

But “we already have a party” isn’t a principle. Neither is “I want to lead one.”

I don’t know what comes out of that conversation. Maybe an existing organization makes sense. Maybe something different does. Maybe there isn’t enough common ground at all.

But anyone coming to the table has to be prepared for the possibility that they won’t lead whatever comes next.

That includes me.

Nobody owns the centre-right. We have to earn the trust of the people we are asking to follow us.

There are a lot of politically homeless British Columbians right now. I don’t think they’re looking for ideological perfection or another political saviour. They want something competent, serious and worth voting for. Something that can get forestry moving, unleash mining and construction, attract investment, fix public services and make this province feel like it has a direction again without putting our kids deeper into debt.

It has to be bigger than any one of us, and certainly bigger than just “not NDP.”

No one gets to own the project or control what comes next. That task belongs to British Columbians.

The table is set. I’ll bring the bevies.

Leave the jersey and the ego at the door.

And let’s get to work.

Brennan Day is  the MLA for Courtenay—Comox.

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