In this episode, we discuss BC Provincial Party Fundraising numbers for Q1 and Q2 of 2025 and discuss why the BC Greens are doing so well compared to the BC NDP and the BC Tories and why the Greens are not.
00:00:00.000Hey guys, Wyatt Claypool here. Today on the show we're going to be talking about BC Provincial fundraising numbers, and if that seems oddly specific to you, hold up for just a second, it will tell a story about how BC Provincial politics are going in general.
00:00:16.260So as you may know, in October of 2024, the BC NDP narrowly were re-elected to a majority government, just winning 47 seats. The Conservatives, who used to have zero seats in the last election, were able to get 44 seats, and the Greens just have two, which is pretty much all the Greens can really ever hope for, because it is just the more radical and more progressive version of the BC NDP.
00:00:43.300It was already extremely radical, even compared to the federal NDP, but I digress. I'm going to break down for you guys what the parties were able to fundraise in quarter one and quarter two, and explain why we are seeing the shift happen.
00:00:59.780Of course, I do work for the new party, 1BC, which is a break-off of the BC Conservatives after John Rustad kicked Dallas Brody out of the party, and Tara Armstrong and Jordan Keeley ended up also leaving, Tara Armstrong then joining with Dallas Brody to start 1BC, which we will get into in a bit.
00:01:18.440But, of course, I would always recommend you go check out the 1BC website that I will have linked in the description below, as well as pinned at the top of the comments.
00:01:27.100But, without further ado now, we will now get into the numbers of how the different parties are doing on fundraising.
00:01:34.200We will start off with quarter one for each of the parties. I will write it in blue.
00:01:39.840I did not put the BC Conservative Party's name in blue for a reason, which we will be getting into.
00:01:46.820And so, in quarter one, we had the BC NDP raise $802,000.
00:01:54.940This is the first full quarter after they had won re-election.
00:02:00.520Of course, the fourth quarter of 2024 is when the election had taken place in BC.
00:02:06.400And, of course, a lot of the parties tend to do a lot of their fundraising earlier in the year, trying to build up a war chest.
00:02:11.380But that's not too bad. Of course, they're back in the government, and usually that means that your fundraising is going to look pretty good.
00:02:17.500Like, let me move my microphone over just so that I'm not turning away from it constantly.
00:02:22.940But that was their first quarter numbers.
00:02:25.940And the BC Conservatives actually had some pretty good fundraising in the first quarter of 2025.
00:02:31.840They had $723,000 that they brought in.
00:02:38.060And then we had the BC Greens bring in $210,000.
00:02:43.760Right now, they are in the middle of a leadership race in order to replace Sonia first to know.
00:02:49.760They have an interim leader right now who isn't running for the leadership, and not even their other MLA isn't even running for the leadership.
00:04:29.260The condition of British Columbia right now is awful.
00:04:31.800It should be easy to bring in money, you know, correcting for the fact that some people may be so broke at this point that they can't afford to do so.
00:05:25.480The Greens barely had a drop, and yes, the BC NDP had a drop of $100,000,
00:05:30.560but they also still brought in $700,000.
00:05:34.320And now I want to show you something that kind of highlights why a lot of people don't really want to donate anymore to the BC Conservatives.
00:05:42.960I'll just quickly bring this up on screen.
00:05:44.860It has to do with things that people like the executive director of the party have been saying,
00:05:49.960effectively indicating the party no longer really cares about opposing things like SOGI and DRIPA.
00:05:56.820This first clip is going to be about DRIPA, and then I want to move over to SOGI.
00:06:00.520If you don't know it, SOGI is, or DRIPA is, the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act,
00:06:07.220which is the BC legislature's imposed version of UNDRIP, the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
00:06:16.320And on this podcast, Mo Amir's podcast, Van Colors, on Czech News,
00:06:22.440the executive director of the BC Conservative Party, Angelo Isidoro, went on to talk about what people like Dallas Brody,
00:06:31.800Jordan Keighley, and Tara Armstrong are getting wrong about how politics is supposed to go.
00:06:38.100It's two minutes, but sit through it, and you will be enlightened by why people are not really confident anymore with the BC Conservatives.
00:06:44.460Part of what I didn't like about the BC Liberals and sort of the modern left is this notion of,
00:06:50.800I like something or I don't like something, therefore you should not be allowed to like that thing.
00:07:29.840How do you handle the reality that, you know, you don't like DRIPA, but there's, you know, there's another colleague in your caucus who does.
00:07:38.920And part of the beauty of what's been built is you can have your opinion, you can vote however you want,
00:07:44.100and they can vote however they want, as long as you agree on like the sacred cows.
00:08:15.920But me and Mo Amir can at least get along in the fact that neither of us like to beat around the bush and just talk in corporate political speak.
00:08:26.760Angelo Isidoro here really needs some PR training.
00:08:31.800He just admitted that the party doesn't actually believe in repealing DRIPA.
00:08:35.900Because he just referenced it as something that people like Dallas, Jordan, and Tara need to get over if their colleagues don't want to vote to repeal it.
00:08:44.100And then he admits it's part of the platform.
00:08:46.540And then when Mo, like, I love this clip.
00:08:49.300Because, like, Mo is laughing because you can tell he's like, isn't that part of your platform?
00:08:53.300Why is this, like, being referenced as something that a free vote would happen on?
00:08:57.380And then when he says, is that a part of the platform or do you have to vote for it?
00:09:05.760And I've seen so many BC conservative people, people who know better, coming out and saying, well, you know, of course we oppose DRIPA, but we also need to pursue real economic reconciliation and we can't be opposing that.
00:09:19.880And the thing is that, yes, they oppose DRIPA.
00:09:22.900Some of them will say they oppose DRIPA.
00:09:24.300But others like Alia Warbus and Eleanor Sterko and Scott McInnes and Peter Milibar and people like that, they won't say they're against it because they're in favor of it.
00:09:32.580But even the ones who are against it will say, but, you know, of course we still want to follow the guidelines laid out in UNDRIP.
00:09:40.500DRIPA is like 80% strength version of UNDRIP.
00:09:43.660And now you're like, okay, we'll repeal it, which I don't believe you will.
00:09:47.400If you put it up for a free vote, let's put it this way, guys.
00:09:50.900If 10%, or let's say one-fifth, one-fifth of people in caucus or even 10% of caucus does not like, you need 47 seats for a majority in British Columbia politics.
00:10:05.900If you lose any people trying to repeal DRIPA and you only have 47 seats, you cannot repeal it.
00:10:12.760And now let's think if you had how many people, if you had a fifth of your MLAs who are in favor of DRIPA, that would mean if you got even 50 seats, you couldn't do it because you would only have 40 voting to get rid of it.
00:10:29.660You would need like how many, you would need like 59 or 60 MLAs before you could actually reliably get rid of DRIPA if you allowed that to be a free vote.
00:10:42.460And Angelo said, well, John apparently is going to tell us whether or not it's up for a free vote or not.
00:10:47.660How don't you know, as the executive director of the party, how is the fat salary doing for you, Angelo, by the way?
00:10:54.380How do you not know, as the executive director of the party, what the flipping leader thinks about DRIPA if he's going to make it a free vote or not?
00:11:10.420One of the two MLAs I work with at 1BC, I work the legislature with 1BC.
00:11:16.100Full disclosure, my salary is a massive $25,000 a year.
00:11:20.200I get paid like sub, sub, like a minimum wage part-time because the point is not for me to make money.
00:11:27.840I, in fact, make only $25,000 a year as a personal choice because I don't like people working at the legislature who I know are making over $150,000, who are making over $200,000 a year.