B.C. Conservatives in disarray

VANCOUVER—B.C. Conservative Leader John Cummins insists he’s not resigning despite calls from within his party to do so, but the situation is dire enough he may consider shaking up his image somewhat — skinny jeans, perhaps, and maybe a hipster beard.

“I’m the first to admit I have shortcomings. I’m not photogenic,” said Cummins. “I’m an old white guy and in a day when youth is more appealing, I know I don’t have the most dynamic or extroverted personality.”

Cummins said if it’ll stop party dissidents from pushing him to resign he just might take to wearing silk shirts, skinny jeans and growing what he calls “one of those little beards. May have to run that by the wife first, though.”

It’s a moment of humour in what has been a really rough week for the leader of the revived Conservative party that barely registered in polls in the last election, but in the last year has risen in voter popularity to nearly 19 per cent.

Cummins’ popularity within his own party is somewhat more contentious. Dissidents held a press conference this week saying Cummins told them he was going to resign but will keep his $4,000 a month salary until April. The showdown came about after Cummins and the party president issued an ultimatum for non-supporters to resign their membership if they weren’t happy with the leader.

Cummins denied he ever said he was going to resign and said calling for a new leader with just months before the May 2013 election will be costly and foolish.

Angus Reid Public Opinion vice-president Mario Canseco said Friday that the B.C. Conservatives, before the in-fighting, had been seen as a viable opposition to the B.C. Liberals and the NDP.

“It’s become a real logistical challenge for them now as to whether they have a party that can run candidates in every riding,” said Canseco. “What we’re seeing is there is a real entrenched system here in B.C., the closest thing we have to an American-style system. There’s the left and the right.”

The B.C. Conservatives have not been able to make in-roads into the voter base that the federal Conservatives did in order to win a majority, said Canseco, and have been unsuccessful in targeting women, ethnic voters and young voters.

Last month, Cummins, the former Reform and Canadian Alliance MP who was unchallenged to assume the leadership of the B.C. Conservatives in May 2011, survived a leadership vote with 70 per cent of members supporting him. As he went up to give his speech, tables of non-supporters sat silently, arms crossed while others applauded.

One of those non-supporters, Allison Patton, the president of an all-women constituency association in Surrey-White Rock, said it’s not Cummins age or “unhipness” that’s the problem.

“He can’t change who he is but he can change how he communicates or how this party communicates with each other,” said Patton Friday. “This man is supposed to be the leader but we don’t know what he represents, he doesn’t communicate. We understand he’s not an extrovert but he can send someone to talk to us.”

Patton said she’s often told by Cummins supporters that she and other so-called dissidents within the party are trying to make too many changes too quickly.

Political science lecturer Jason Morris at the University of Northern B.C. in Prince George, said the squabbling within the Conservatives show they’re not ready to win seats.

“Minor party members and supporters can be the castoffs or misfits from the main parties that somehow revel in the outsider status they create and perpetuate,” he said. “As a reality TV show, it would be fascinating yet predictable to see, time and again, fringe parties implode.”

The B.C. Conservatives didn’t win any seats in the last election but former B.C. Liberal John van Dongen quit his party to join the Conservatives giving them their only spot in the Legislature. But van Dongen last month quit the Conservatives after Cummins survived the leadership vote, saying he was distressed that he’s received no acknowledgement from the leader.

Former B.C. Conservative candidate John Martin has also left the party to join the B.C. Liberals, hoping to run in the Chilliwack—Hope riding next spring. Martin ran for the B.C. Conservatives in the byelection last April that saw the NDP candidate Gwen O’Mahony win the seat in a traditional conservative riding after the B.C. Liberal and B.C. Conservatives split the vote.

“The lesson learned was when the non-NDP vote is being contested by two parties, the NDP wins in B.C.,” said Martin Friday. “Even in fairly conservative bedrocks such as Chilliwack and Hope, the voters made it clear the B.C. Liberals were far and away their first choice among the non-NDP voters.”

Martin said he still has good friends in his former party and doesn’t want to pile on the party’s in-fighting.

“I haven’t seen meltdown like this since Charlie Sheen. It’s just too bizarre to even follow. Every political party goes through its turmoil and maybe that’s all this is.”

Original Article
Source: the star
Author: Petti Fong