The National Telegraph - Wyatt Claypool - Canada's saddest political party - BC United has collapsed

00:00:00.000 Welcome back to the Wyatt Claypool Show, everyone, and today I want to talk about how Canadian electoral politics works from the perspective of what not to do with the perfect example that's currently playing out in British Columbia, that being the utter collapse of the British Columbia United Party, formerly known as the BC Liberals.

00:00:24.040 The BC provincial election has come down to being a race between the BC NDP and the BC Conservatives, and then the Greens are sort of in there. They're competitive in two or three seats. You know, they're a player.

00:00:37.240 The BC Liberals used to be one of the big two parties. For a long time, they used to be absolutely dominant in BC politics.

00:00:45.780 In the early 2000s, I think there was one of those elections where they won every seat except for like three or four of them. It was an absolute walkover for the BC Liberals.

00:00:56.820 But then, after John Horgan won in 2017 and became the premier, BC Liberals just didn't know what to do.

00:01:04.860 They didn't know what direction to go in, whether they should lean more liberal, whether they should sort of go back to its more conservative roots, because despite the name being BC Liberals, it was fundamentally a big tent party meant to serve many different constituents on their needs, generally people wanting smaller government, just more responsible government.

00:01:26.500 They're not big bloated trade unions, the way that the NDP tend to be. But Kevin Falcon, when he became the new leader of the party, they kicked Aaron Gunn out of that leadership race, who would have made a very good BC Liberal leader.

00:01:40.780 Kevin Falcon took over the party, and as a sign of things to come, he decided that, you know what, we're down in the polls. We lost the last two elections effectively, not because we just ignored our own base's wants for a party to fight back against the carbon tax that we technically did implement back in the day, not to fight SOGI, not to push back on decriminalization or safe supply, none of those things.

00:02:07.740 What the voters put us, you know, what they vote for us for is consultants nonsense, random lobbyist nonsense. The BCU has become the party for nobody, because Kevin Falcon can't pick up a glass of water and decide to take a sip from it without three focus groups telling him it's a good idea.

00:02:29.380 Are the voters going to be alienated by me drinking Five Alive? Should I just stick to an orange juice? Is that too radical for people? That is Kevin Falcon's problem.

00:02:39.480 The man's entire career, and I've heard a lot of good things about him back in the day, that he was an actual very good politician back in the early 2010s, 2000s, and then he took some time off from politics and came back.

00:02:52.500 But the problem is, and frankly, this was actually the problem of Jason Kenney in Alberta as the premier of Alberta, when you are, when your entire career is basically being a follower, as soon as you become the leader of your party, or even the premier in Kenney's case, you don't know what to do.

00:03:09.760 You stall out, and you can't make tough decisions, because in Kenney's case, he was used to going up and asking Harper for help when he was in a hard place.

00:03:19.740 So during COVID, he just relied on anything the AHS directors recommended, even if it actually made him less and less popular with the voters that put him in office.

00:03:28.980 Same thing with Kevin Falcon. He wants to be able to go and ask a Gordon Campbell or a Christy Clark what to do, and he can't these days.

00:03:36.360 And so now, he's just been flailing about, frankly, copying his conservative opponents.

00:03:42.980 But the entire collapse of the BC United Party started when he tried to initially stop the bleeding of support and kicked John Rustad out of the party for standing up against the carbon tax.

00:03:56.720 Imagine that. The BC NDP, even though the liberals were the ones who started the carbon tax back in the day, they were the ones who established it,

00:04:03.920 the BC NDP have fully embraced the carbon tax. They are the party of the carbon tax, the party who will always aggressively push for provincial carbon tax increases.

00:04:13.760 And now, the BC liberals, who then, Kevin Falcon, changed the name to the BC United Party in a very stupid internal party referendum.

00:04:21.160 Now, they're just kind of also the party that wants the carbon tax to stay, but just in a slightly, you know, slower to increase form. 1.00

00:04:30.580 Absolutely stupid. John Rustad, who can read a room, understood that the carbon tax was deeply unpopular. 0.99

00:04:38.580 And then so, Kevin Falcon decided to plant the seeds of his own destruction, kicked John Rustad out,

00:04:44.780 knowing that there's just an empty, brand new, shiny political vehicle that's always been sitting there since Social Credit collapsed,

00:04:51.420 being the British Columbia Conservative Party.

00:04:53.640 Since Social Credit collapsed very quickly, most of the Conservatives and Liberals, you know, soft federal Liberals,

00:04:59.800 and then Conservatives all joined the provincial, like, provincial Liberal Party,

00:05:04.040 there just has not been enough momentum to get the Conservatives off the ground in all that time.

00:05:08.720 But he's created a great political moment and proven that his party is useless.

00:05:13.940 So Rustad joined the Conservatives and then immediately started rocketing upward in terms of his support.

00:05:19.480 As soon as it had a leader, as soon as it had an MLA, it became a legitimate political vehicle.

00:05:25.300 And then the current MLA I'm helping out in his re-election, Bruce Bandman,

00:05:30.460 after they said that he wasn't, he should just leave the room if he doesn't want to vote to condemn the trucker convoy

00:05:36.740 and say that Bonnie Henry's doing a great job, he then decided to cross the floor making an official party.

00:05:41.560 I believe that was actually a change that the NDP had put into place.

00:05:45.920 So it's also John Horgan and David Eby that have also caused the Conservatives to skyrocket

00:05:51.200 because I believe that they changed the rules so you only need two seats to be an official opposition party

00:05:56.020 so that they could give the Greens a little bit more money for their legislative duties.

00:06:00.420 And so as soon as that happened, they started increasing even faster.

00:06:04.860 And then because the Conservatives kept getting on a roll,

00:06:08.220 they kept gaining more people from crossing the floor,

00:06:11.200 Lauren Dirksen, Eleanor Sturko, and then just recently, Teresa Watt.

00:06:15.180 I've even heard it rumored that there's some other people who might be crossing the floor

00:06:18.940 and, you know, might not even be the United Party that they're coming from.

00:06:23.640 But just to quickly do a plug just before I move on to what the BC United Party has been doing recently,

00:06:29.640 since I'm out here in Abbotsford helping the BC Conservative Party,

00:06:33.640 I just want to let all of you know who are living in British Columbia,

00:06:36.800 you know, the only thing that the NDP has an advantage over the Conservatives on right now,

00:06:41.640 not the issues, not the polling.

00:06:42.860 We have more polling momentum on the issues.

00:06:44.900 We're more popular.

00:06:46.220 All we need is basically the money to increase our name recognition.

00:06:49.720 The BC NDP have cooked the books when it comes to financial, political finance policy.

00:06:54.540 They get 33% of their campaign spending from 2020 back in a big check from taxpayers.

00:06:59.460 And then I believe they get like $1.50 per vote they got in the last election.

00:07:03.980 And every single year they get that money.

00:07:06.340 And so they are a taxpayer-funded party where the BC Conservatives basically get no money.

00:07:11.440 I think they've gotten in total $50,000.

00:07:13.680 They've gotten absolutely no money from BC taxpayers.

00:07:17.020 I don't think taxpayers should be giving parties any money at all.

00:07:20.120 But this is the system the BC NDP has started.

00:07:22.860 So if you live in BC, I have a donation link for the Abbotsford South Riding.

00:07:27.640 If you donate to that, it will help fund Bruce Bannman's re-election campaign.

00:07:31.500 We don't need that much money.

00:07:32.600 But what we're going to do is be the central collecting point for money in the Fraser Valley.

00:07:37.160 Everyone says I say it wrong.

00:07:38.480 I don't know how I'm supposed to say Fraser Valley.

00:07:41.440 Fraser Valley?

00:07:42.720 I don't know.

00:07:43.560 But if you guys donate to that link, we will basically be able to package up money

00:07:48.720 and then send it out to ridings that the BC Conservatives can credibly win.

00:07:52.320 There's a lot of ridings that we can win in, but it allows us to kind of manage the region.

00:07:56.400 If you donate up to $100, you get 75% of it back.

00:08:00.820 And so it's only cost you $25 to give us 75.

00:08:03.540 And if you donate up to $550, you get 50% of it back.

00:08:06.660 You get 33% of your money back for everything past $550.

00:08:11.760 Anyways, now let's get back to the BC United Party.

00:08:15.360 So they have not been able to catch a moment.

00:08:17.820 They've been in fourth place in the polls for probably a couple months now.

00:08:21.780 They just fell behind the BC Greens.

00:08:24.080 Nobody likes them.

00:08:25.040 Yes, they're still technically the official opposition through sheer seat count, but many

00:08:30.460 of these people are saying they're not running again.

00:08:32.720 My friend Brian Berguet in the riding of Vancouver Langara, he's the BC Conservative candidate in

00:08:37.960 that riding.

00:08:38.600 He just had his United opponent just drop out of the race.

00:08:41.680 That was probably going to be the only reason United was maybe going to be able to punch above

00:08:46.280 20% in that riding.

00:08:47.620 He's gone.

00:08:48.380 That riding's pretty much secured for the BC Conservatives.

00:08:52.000 It's just a disaster.

00:08:53.240 So United is doing what they've been doing for the past six months, hoping, you know,

00:08:58.500 because they've effectively gone insane because they're just repeating the same thing over

00:09:02.540 and over again, hoping for different results.

00:09:04.340 They're now just bragging about the fact that they are raising money.

00:09:07.920 It's sad.

00:09:09.000 I don't know why they're doing this.

00:09:11.000 And it says breaking.

00:09:12.220 BC United raised nearly $200,000 within a 48-hour span last week.

00:09:16.980 The momentum is clearly shifting towards BC United, and we're ready to take the fight

00:09:22.420 to the NDP momentum in action.

00:09:25.400 I love how pompous this is.

00:09:27.240 If anything, like, I'm not suggesting anything at all.

00:09:30.200 I'm just making a joke.

00:09:31.560 Like, this looks like money laundering almost, because they have 9% in the polls.

00:09:36.800 They have 9%.

00:09:38.120 And I'm supposed to sit here and think that this is just normal momentum.

00:09:42.040 Really, what this is, is, again, BC United is just infested.

00:09:47.160 And I think that is the perfect word to use.

00:09:49.180 Infested with consultants and lobbyists, people with, you know, people who make a lot of money

00:09:55.920 to do not a lot of work in the lobbying industry.

00:09:58.380 And so they have big networks of people who they can pretend, hey, we have the second most seats.

00:10:04.420 We're the real opposition to the NDP, and get these people to donate, like, you know,

00:10:09.860 the maximum amount to the party, $1,450, $1,450.

00:10:17.380 And so I guarantee it was just a few events where they got a bunch of their normal donors

00:10:21.380 tricked into thinking that they have momentum.

00:10:24.120 They cracked off a check, gave it to them, and now they're celebrating it.

00:10:27.960 The rumor I've heard, and it's just a rumor at this point, is that the BCU, because they

00:10:33.320 were trying to catch a little bit of a moment for so long, they had racked up massive amounts

00:10:38.860 of campaign advertising spending, and they got to pay some vendors off now.

00:10:43.560 And so that's the real reason that they're pushing hard for fundraising.

00:10:47.780 They don't have any momentum on the grounds.

00:10:49.700 I know a lot of their candidates are basically not even door knocking.

00:10:53.060 I, yesterday, door knocking, the only person who was voting for the BC United candidate

00:10:57.320 in Abbotsford South works for them, like, as an employee, not a member of the campaign,

00:11:01.740 but an employee.

00:11:02.600 And, like, you know, more power to you.

00:11:04.300 You probably know him.

00:11:05.220 Probably a friendly guy, but friendly guy is not what politics is about.

00:11:09.000 It's about who's actually going to make a difference if they're in government, and the

00:11:12.740 BC United are not going to do that at all.

00:11:15.160 But, yeah, like, I have heard that basically what they're doing, the rumor is, they're

00:11:19.580 just collecting money because they have to pay off their vendors and keep their own staffers

00:11:23.480 paid for the next three months, like, the political staffers, not the legislative office

00:11:28.520 people, but the people who work directly for the party.

00:11:30.800 They got to keep them paid until October, just since they have contracts.

00:11:35.520 And they're not going to spend almost any money on advertising.

00:11:38.440 They are simply going around tricking donors to give them money so that they can stay afloat

00:11:43.840 for just a little while longer.

00:11:46.340 That might not be true.

00:11:47.300 Maybe they mount a serious campaign, but at the moment, I don't see anything serious.

00:11:52.020 It seems like their spending has really gone down.

00:11:54.780 I haven't seen any ads for them on social media for the last while.

00:11:58.680 They had this really weird ad.

00:12:00.660 I actually want to go see if I can find it.

00:12:02.360 Kevin Falcon had this, like, abysmally weird ad back in the day where it's like, he looks

00:12:07.920 like Michael Scott in the episode of The Office where he's depressed trying to feed pigeons

00:12:13.280 in, like, November by throwing, like, loaves of bread on the ground.

00:12:17.740 Oh, I think he got rid of it.

00:12:19.480 Oh, dang it.

00:12:20.240 Where it's like, the whole ad starts off with him, like, looking over up here, and it's

00:12:24.560 like a cloudy day.

00:12:25.620 Like, he might as well have been wearing a turtleneck.

00:12:27.500 He looks depressed, like he's going to start playing, like, jazz saxophone or whatever.

00:12:32.600 The imagistics of that party are terrible.

00:12:35.240 And now I want to just jump over to some of the reactions that occurred after the BC

00:12:41.800 United declared that they had momentum.

00:12:44.360 So here we have Sheree Attiste noting the momentum in question.

00:12:48.620 And here are the actual polls.

00:12:50.580 And this is back in, after the election.

00:12:53.800 That's where the little targets up there. 0.62

00:12:55.840 That's where the parties ended off after the 2020 election.

00:12:59.240 BC United were already not doing very well after the last election.

00:13:02.540 And, you know, partially it was because John Horgan was actually charismatic, whereas David

00:13:07.980 Eby just comes off like a student union president who somehow lucked into becoming a premier, which

00:13:13.340 is effectively what happened.

00:13:14.940 The crazy activist section of the BCNDP, which actually does not represent the party's, like,

00:13:21.100 base.

00:13:21.720 Most of the party's base are blue-collar workers, and they don't like David Eby.

00:13:26.320 But the upper brass of the party, who lives in downtown Victoria in Vancouver, really likes

00:13:30.440 David Eby.

00:13:31.240 So they bullied everyone from actually running against him for the leadership race after

00:13:35.280 John Horgan had to step down from having cancer.

00:13:37.780 And they just claimed him.

00:13:39.360 He was acclaimed as the leader, because even the NDP, to switch gears here for a second, 0.99

00:13:43.240 even the NDP know their own leader sucks. 0.99

00:13:46.100 They know that David Eby sucks at running. 0.96

00:13:48.520 And so this is exactly why there's a lot of NDP staffers and politicians, like elected officials,

00:13:54.220 even ministers, leaking to former Green Party leader Andrew Weaver so that he can just spill

00:13:59.620 all the rumors out on the floor.

00:14:01.380 They're all 100% true that David Eby is a control freak while also having no clue what

00:14:06.680 he's talking about.

00:14:07.880 You'll notice every time a minister in BC wants to do some sort of press event to announce 1.00

00:14:13.400 a new program or whatever, it's all stupid. 1.00

00:14:15.320 All their announcements are garbage at this point. 1.00

00:14:17.680 There's nothing that they can actually say. 0.99

00:14:19.420 So they're just merely saying, we're going to spend on this and we're going to spend on that

00:14:22.400 and everything's great, even though everything's awful, that David Eby makes them go stand behind

00:14:27.080 him while he does the presser, because he does not like anyone doing things themselves.

00:14:32.660 He's extremely condescending.

00:14:34.660 And that's why eight NDP MLAs, who probably had a good chance of winning re-election, if

00:14:40.000 not had a guaranteed re-election, like a course for re-election, because a lot of these people

00:14:44.820 were in safe ridings in Vancouver or Victoria, that they're all quitting because they don't

00:14:49.760 like working for David Eby.

00:14:50.900 So even though there's a chance that NDP could win re-election, they just don't want

00:14:55.500 to stick around at all, because the greatest horror for them would actually be having to

00:15:00.840 work for a David Eby government for another four years.

00:15:04.100 But yeah, so the BC United do not have momentum.

00:15:07.480 They're down around a little bit above 10% on average in this poll, but the last few polls

00:15:12.880 I've seen put them around 9% or 8%.

00:15:15.160 It's been bad.

00:15:16.900 There's the United Post again.

00:15:18.160 A lot of people saying the momentum while they were replying to them.

00:15:22.080 And now, there's a story I want to get to here.

00:15:29.480 This is the ResearchCo poll also showing the BC United falling down to 9%.

00:15:33.960 The thing is that you should note about ResearchCo, they have a very more left-leaning sample

00:15:39.280 bias, simply because they are an online poll which skews younger, which tends to skew more

00:15:44.100 NDP, and also a lot of online polls tend to be answered by downtown office workers who

00:15:49.620 tend to skew NDP.

00:15:50.840 You know, you don't get as many tradespeople, farmers, or small business owners in there.

00:15:54.300 And even then, the conservatives are only down 3% with still three months to go in this

00:15:58.700 election.

00:15:59.180 It's going pretty well.

00:16:00.720 But I want to get to this story.

00:16:01.980 Presumably, it's from Aaron Otho.

00:16:08.620 I don't know.

00:16:09.160 I'm terrible at pronouncing people's names.

00:16:11.480 But I was just going to say that this guy had a great story about Kevin Falcon that I

00:16:16.140 wanted to go over here.

00:16:17.280 Oops, trying to bring up this story thing right here.

00:16:20.680 I always hate how bookmarks work.

00:16:23.260 And he has a great thread here about the BC United Party.

00:16:26.780 And he's somebody who's deeply sympathetic to Kevin Falcon.

00:16:30.040 This is not somebody going for a victory lap on Kevin Falcon's political grave here.

00:16:35.120 So Aaron here says, I like Kevin Falcon and the BCU party.

00:16:39.420 And I'm sorry, and the BCU party has a lot of great policies and people.

00:16:42.740 I've been a volunteer member donor since I graduated high school in 2000.

00:16:46.760 While still a better option than NDP, it makes several big strategic mistakes, alienating

00:16:52.080 conservatives from the big tent.

00:16:54.120 It goes on to say, brands must validate their message through action to maintain trust.

00:16:59.280 The party did the opposite, dividing its members.

00:17:02.120 There's a choice now, slow obsolescence or fast.

00:17:05.240 Fast is better for BC in order to beat the NDP to restore competent government, public

00:17:09.260 safety, and prosperity.

00:17:10.740 I've decided to support the BC conservatives.

00:17:13.240 The remaining BCU MLA's donors members also have a choice to make.

00:17:16.900 BC conservatives have good people, good policies, and public support slash momentum.

00:17:21.100 Maybe you won't agree with everything, everyone, but that's how a big United tent works.

00:17:27.640 And Aaron is absolutely right.

00:17:29.780 The problem right now is if you're supporting the BCU because you're trying to get the NDP

00:17:34.880 out of office, it's the least good option.

00:17:37.980 You'd have a better chance of voting for the Greens to try and get the BC NDP out of office.

00:17:43.280 And now I want to jump over to one of the saddest things that the BC United party has resorted

00:17:48.380 to doing because of their terrible polling numbers.

00:17:51.000 So the BC United, knowing that their brand, because I don't know why they decided to change

00:17:58.780 the name.

00:17:59.300 It didn't make sense at all to me.

00:18:01.140 It doesn't help them in any way to change their name.

00:18:05.740 Like again, they were afraid that the BC liberal name was going to hurt them because it was going

00:18:10.680 to associate them with the federals.

00:18:12.580 Sure, but also name recognition matters.

00:18:15.200 You can't just simply, you can't just simply call yourself the BC United party of nowhere

00:18:20.880 or BC coalition or whatever.

00:18:23.240 If people don't know what it is, they're not going to care what it is.

00:18:26.880 That's, that was the, that's actually how the BC conservatives used to get votes back

00:18:30.740 in the day, even when they ran barely any candidates, just because it was the conservative

00:18:34.960 name.

00:18:35.580 If it was on the ballot, even if it was a paper candidate, they could get seven, eight,

00:18:39.280 9% of the vote that brand was worth eight or 9% points.

00:18:43.580 Do you think if you put up a paper candidate in one of these ridings in BC right now as

00:18:48.640 a, just a United candidate, just put the candidate's name on the ballot, don't do much campaigning.

00:18:53.320 Do you think they're going to get eight or 9%, probably more like three or two.

00:18:57.440 There's just no momentum at all there.

00:18:59.560 That name means nothing to anybody.

00:19:02.540 Brands matter.

00:19:03.280 And a name has to imply stability, imply that you're confident.

00:19:08.560 And it has to be something that like, that people can immediately connect to something

00:19:11.680 good.

00:19:12.140 I don't, I don't know what United even means.

00:19:15.320 United, depending on the province here, and there's actually a lot of parties with the

00:19:19.040 name United in it.

00:19:19.940 You know, the United Conservative Party of Alberta, there's United Party in Saskatchewan.

00:19:24.380 I believe that they had a United Party out in Ontario.

00:19:27.500 And some of them are more right wing, some of them are more left wing.

00:19:31.340 And so it doesn't make any sense at all why you would name yourself something that's very

00:19:35.080 ambiguous, especially considering that you're also associating yourself with something from

00:19:39.620 Alberta, which, you know, BC voters, not that BC voters hate Alberta, but BC voters

00:19:44.580 don't want something that feels like an Alberta imported name, just as Alberta voters wouldn't

00:19:49.260 want something that feels like a BC imported brand.

00:19:52.880 And anyways, but this is the saddest thing that the BC United Party has done.

00:19:57.420 They are reversing course on their terrible branding change.

00:20:01.720 And this is a report that has been confirmed to be true.

00:20:04.880 It says, BC United will be asking Elections BC for permission to have the party name on

00:20:10.980 the October BC election ballot read as BC United, formerly the BC Liberal Party.

00:20:17.520 In recognition that a recent internal poll, the party members showed 30% didn't know

00:20:22.820 BC United was the new name.

00:20:25.940 That's unforgivable.

00:20:27.200 If they're party members, BCU members, 30% of them didn't know the name was changed.

00:20:32.420 You have their emails, their phone numbers, and they didn't know that the BC Liberals

00:20:37.680 changed their name.

00:20:38.440 There was a referendum vote on it.

00:20:40.000 There was a vote inside the party.

00:20:41.320 Do you want the name changed?

00:20:42.340 Yes or no?

00:20:42.900 What do you want it to be?

00:20:44.080 And none of these people were engaged enough.

00:20:46.020 This is just a problem of thinking your base doesn't matter.

00:20:50.500 They don't engage their base.

00:20:51.740 Their entire convention a few months ago was literally just wall-to-wall consultants and

00:20:57.240 lobbyists networking each other, which was nonsensical because none of them can help each

00:21:02.160 other because they all just have their different interests that they represent or their different

00:21:05.540 strategy firms.

00:21:06.580 And so a strategy firm employee can't network with another strategy firm employee.

00:21:11.580 They're effectively opponents.

00:21:13.620 But BCU got taken over by lobbyists and consultants.

00:21:17.700 And so their own members didn't even know about the name change.

00:21:20.620 And now they want to have on the ballot, guys, we're formerly the BC Liberal Party.

00:21:26.040 I know you don't like the United name, you know, but we're the old party as well.

00:21:30.120 Like, does the BC Conservative Party get to say in brackets, we're a lot like the Social

00:21:34.300 Credit Party?

00:21:35.640 Does the BC NDP also get to say in brackets, formerly the CCF? 1.00

00:21:41.260 That's stupid. 0.97

00:21:42.420 Like, they might as well have, like, they might as well file to BC elections to under, like, 1.00

00:21:48.600 BC United Party, formerly the BC Liberals, have a sad photo of Kevin Falcon saying, please

00:21:53.460 vote for us.

00:21:55.060 It's so, it's, they know they're going to lose.

00:21:58.240 They know they're going to lose.

00:21:59.480 I guarantee all these moves are just so that they can keep raising funds so they can make

00:22:03.800 sure that they have no debts after the party folds.

00:22:06.220 I heard after Teresa Watt, from a viewer of the show who knows somebody in the BCU party,

00:22:11.940 you know, higher up, more in touch with what's going on, there was a meltdown when Teresa

00:22:16.700 Watt in Richmond, Queensborough said she was going to cross the floor.

00:22:20.840 Everyone's jumping ship now.

00:22:22.460 They're like, okay, it's done.

00:22:23.640 We're not winning any seats.

00:22:25.120 Richmond's done.

00:22:26.340 Now Richmond's probably going to be a blue city.

00:22:28.800 You know, Burnaby's probably going to be blue.

00:22:30.440 A lot of these seats are going to go blue.

00:22:32.220 We have no room to win anything.

00:22:34.620 Nobody likes us.

00:22:35.580 Nobody knows who we are.

00:22:37.240 What's the point?

00:22:38.980 Yeah.

00:22:39.280 What is the point?

00:22:40.940 And it's just an example of what not to do in politics.

00:22:46.460 Politics is all about name recognition, like, you know, likability, name recognition, and

00:22:53.020 hustle.

00:22:53.800 It's all about being able to show all those things.

00:22:56.800 People know who you are.

00:22:58.380 They trust you and they think you're going to work hard and make a difference.

00:23:02.020 BC United has literally none of those things.

00:23:04.660 Nobody likes Kevin Falcon.

00:23:06.240 Probably a nice guy, but nobody likes him on, like, a warm way.

00:23:11.280 His approval ratings are horrible.

00:23:12.780 It's like negative 21% right now.

00:23:14.680 That's like almost Justin Trudeau federal levels of disapproval.

00:23:18.320 Nobody really knows him.

00:23:19.600 He is the bland porridge of a leader.

00:23:23.680 He's just somebody.

00:23:25.280 And that's the problem.

00:23:26.160 You want somebody who's characterful.

00:23:28.320 John Rested has character.

00:23:29.860 David Eby, in a certain sense, has character.

00:23:32.880 It's not a good character.

00:23:33.800 People don't like him. 0.67

00:23:34.860 But when you see David Eby, you remember him, even though he's kind of a dorky guy.

00:23:39.020 I'm saying this as a dorky guy myself.

00:23:41.260 You know, John Rested comes off with that more working class, you know, blue collar energy

00:23:46.040 that helps.

00:23:46.840 He's not somebody who's yelling and screaming or anything like that and trying to get, like,

00:23:50.840 artificially, you know, get crowds whipped up.

00:23:53.800 But he's characterful.

00:23:56.080 You know, first to know is characterful.

00:23:58.700 Falcon isn't.

00:23:59.800 And then the party brand doesn't, you don't know who they are.

00:24:02.940 So they don't have the likable leader.

00:24:04.540 They don't have a brand.

00:24:05.620 Because social credit, you could say, for the longest time in British Columbia and Alberta

00:24:09.320 and, like, federally in Quebec as well, that was a party that ran on charismatic leaders.

00:24:16.440 Outside of William Aberhart in Alberta, there wasn't really that many ideological social

00:24:21.040 creditors.

00:24:21.540 Most of them were just neoconservative type leaders like Ernest Manning, the Bennett family,

00:24:26.640 Bill Vanderzam, who's a very underrated premier, by the way.

00:24:29.820 You know, he was probably, like, the first politician in Canada to truly be destroyed by

00:24:33.800 the media for being conservative.

00:24:35.740 So they basically fear mongered against him in the fantasy gardens type stuff.

00:24:39.060 But that's another story for another day.

00:24:41.080 But those parties ran on charismatic leaders.

00:24:43.340 The social credit brand really didn't mean much outside the leader.

00:24:46.540 So you can get away with not having a great brand.

00:24:49.160 But BCU doesn't have a brand.

00:24:50.560 They don't have a leader.

00:24:51.540 And they don't have the hustle.

00:24:53.300 They are not a party that people, that either is campaigning hard, I don't see them campaigning

00:24:57.860 hard, and people think that if they got into government, they're probably not going to do

00:25:01.840 anything, which is probably the right way of seeing them.

00:25:05.940 But anyways, that should be it for me today, guys.

00:25:08.580 This has become a bit of a rambling video.

00:25:10.580 But I wanted to kind of go over what's been going on with the BC United Party, what people,

00:25:15.700 you know, just the strange case of a party that just decided that they're not willing

00:25:21.140 to win.

00:25:22.240 In politics, you know, you got to actually be focused on the win, not just focused on being

00:25:27.980 neutral and, you know, palatable.

00:25:30.840 Palatable, risk managing everything that you do is not compelling.

00:25:36.520 Controversy is actually a good thing.

00:25:38.300 BC conservatives are willing to be controversial.

00:25:41.020 United NDP is willing to be controversial because being controversial is not always a

00:25:45.600 bad thing.

00:25:46.360 Controversial just means you do something that's worth talking about, makes people talk.

00:25:50.600 People are concerned about the things that you're saying.

00:25:53.120 They might think that you're right.

00:25:55.100 You might win 80 to 20 people.

00:25:57.560 That 80% of people agree with you, only 20% disagree about what you said was controversial.

00:26:01.340 But it's something that makes people pay attention.

00:26:03.540 United says nothing.

00:26:04.920 They focus group everything to death so that when they do wade into a topic, all of the

00:26:08.980 life force of that topic has been ripped away because it's just the most bland issue for

00:26:15.960 them to stick their toe into.

00:26:17.920 Anyways, but that should be it for me today, guys.

00:26:20.500 If you're in British Columbia, again, donation link in the description below.

00:26:24.580 Click on that if you're in your, like, you know, donate $100.

00:26:27.780 It only costs you $25.

00:26:28.840 The BC Conservatives need the money to take on the NDP.

00:26:31.980 They don't have all the advantages the NDP have given themselves.

00:26:35.500 And if you don't live in BC, you can always support me with my legal fund.

00:26:39.260 It's the Give, Send, Go link underneath the BC Conservatives donation link.

00:26:43.540 You know, you can, it really helps us out.

00:26:45.580 We've paid over $30,000 in legal fees, fending off this Chinese billionaire suing us for defamation,

00:26:51.220 despite the fact that in over two and a half years, he hasn't been able to prove defamation.

00:26:55.080 And in an article that we mentioned him in that he took issue with, we literally just

00:26:59.420 hyperlinked to a Globe and Mail article.

00:27:01.400 Everything we said about him was just what the Globe and Mail had said.

00:27:04.320 And we just repeated, not even repeated all of it.

00:27:06.760 We just repeated a tiny little summation of it.

00:27:09.040 And because he was too scared, apparently, to sue Globe and Mail a year and a half before

00:27:14.080 we had published our article, he decided to sue us.

00:27:17.220 And even though our article was written in 2020 in August and released, he then sued us

00:27:22.220 for some reason, or me and the National Telegraph, in December of 2021.

00:27:26.880 So it apparently didn't bother him for more than a year.

00:27:29.680 But then he started suing us.

00:27:31.260 And then apparently it's not that big of a deal because he's been letting it drag out

00:27:35.060 for a very long time, just trying to rack up our legal costs and presenting absolutely

00:27:39.980 nothing substantial to even prove we were rude to him.

00:27:43.840 Not even that what we said was not factual, what we said was factual, but even that we

00:27:47.860 were being nasty or anything, you can't even prove damages. 0.95

00:27:50.780 It's just a ridiculous case.

00:27:52.200 So give, send, go link if you want to help us out.

00:27:54.520 And then also my website's down there, wyattclaypool.com.

00:27:57.400 If you guys want to be on the political organizing list, I've started nationally for Canada.

00:28:02.540 It allows me to point out good nomination candidates and ridings and contact anybody

00:28:06.680 who watches the show in those areas.

00:28:09.380 Anyways, I'll see you guys in my next video.

00:28:12.460 And, you know, like, share, subscribe, do all that great YouTube stuff.

The National Telegraph - Wyatt Claypool - August 02, 2024

Canada's saddest political party - BC United has collapsed

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