Common sense is not a political philosophy of the left or the right

John Cummins speaking
in Kamloops (May 26)

In the past few days, soon to be leader of the BC Conservative Party, John Cummins, has been meeting and talking to people in the Thompson Okanagan region.

In Vernon just the other day he stated, “People are tired with the choices they have and the last election is proof of that when 48 per cent of British Columbians stayed home, they didn’t like either choice”

This morning I spoke with Jim Harrison from CHNL Radio who asked about some of the things the party is looking at with regards to policy – one of the things I mentioned is that policy is going to be common sense, and that people will be able to support it because of that very reason.

The BC Conservative Party is not a party of the left – nor is it a party of the right – and that is exactly what John Cummins has been putting forward to people over the past 6 months and more.

It’s a thought echoed by others as well, including BC Conservative Party TAG member Darryl Stinson, who like John was an MP in Ottawa:

“I don’t believe in far left or far right, it’s right or wrong and some people might perceive it as being right or left, but we’ve being missing the provincial common sense of what has to be done in this province.  We have to start looking at Provincial jurisdiction and where it overlaps with the Federal policies and start defining our rights as a province in order to go forward."

Last night (Thursday may 26^th) John Cummins spoke to members and others who attended a meeting in Kamloops about building a NEW BC Conservative Party … and as reporter Cam Fortems noted in a story in the Kamloops daily News:

The six-time federal MP looked back nearly 25 years, to the roots of the federal Reform party, a political force unleashed by Preston Manning and harnessed into a majority government this month by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.  Cummins brought back more than the grassroots history of Reform to his audience at Hotel 540, he also looked to the ideas that brought that party success with everyday voters.

Why did John Cummins take a look back at the early days of the Reform Party? 

I believe that one of the reasons was to remind people that something which started as a spark, grew to represent the majority interest of first Western Canada, and then to become a majority government in Ottawa.

It started as a spark with a few people meeting in kitchens and coffee shops … into thousands of people in a grassroots movement putting together a common sense platform of responsible government.

That means there's a lot of work ahead for the BC Conservative Party … but lots of work is already underway. 

Another supporter of the BC Conservatives (and also Canada’s first woman premier), Rita Johnson has no illusions about the work needed … “Nothing’s easy if it’s worthwhile and a lot of people here think it’s worthwhile so I’m prepared to do whatever I can to help them out.”

To conclude … here is one more comment that John Cummins made in Kamloops last night, with reference to the Christy Clark Liberals; “Does that sound like a free enterprise, low-tax party to you? Their first act was to increase the minimum wage.”

And of both the Liberals and the NDP he said, “...they are fighting about who can tax the highest and spend the most.”

With John Cummins at the helm of the BC Conservative Party, he will soon have not just Christy Clark’s Liberals nervously looking over their shoulder … but also Adrian Dix and the NDP.  That’s because common sense is not a political philosophy of the left or the right!

I’m Alan Forseth in Kamloops, and those are the thoughts of one conservative.