Nothing else can, or will, save them before defeat in 2013 … even with a Leadership change

Steve Forseth, former BC Liberal
Policy Chair / Riding Secretary
for the Cariboo - Chilcotin

My nephew Steve, has been a blogger for several years now, and has been active in support of the BC Liberal Party – it makes for some interesting discussion on politics for sure. 

The other day I asked if he would be interested in providing a Guest Opinion for the Conservative Thoughts blog, which after consideration, he agreed to do.  Here then, is that guest editorial.

Over the last year or so, much has been made about the so-called vote split for the ‘Conservative’ voter in BC. 

In times past, most conservative voters (small-c, ‘Blue’ and ‘Red’ Tories) provincially have aligned themselves behind the ‘BC Liberal’ brand,  Recently however, small-c conservatives have become rapidly disillusioned with the Christy Clark BC Liberals’, and a fair number of them have decided to back the John Cummins BC Conservatives’. 

It should be noted that the split of small ‘c’ conservatives in Alberta has led to the formation of two conservative political parties in Alberta consisting of the Wildrose Party and the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta

Political history in BC during the 1952, 1972, 1991, and 1996 BC General Elections shows that a split on the centre-right in BC generally elects a NDP government

Much has been made recently of the two by-elections in Port Moody and Chilliwack, including what would have occurred if the centre-right vote had been behind one party. 

Let’s be clear – one conservative party in the Port Moody – Coquitlam by-election would have made no difference, given the strength of the NDP candidate, former Port Moody Mayor Joe Trasolini ... but it could have prevented the election of an NDP MLA in Chilliwack – Hope.

So what does the future of conservatives in BC hold?

Now available … “HST Math for Dummies”

Yesterday in the Vancouver Sun, columnist Don Cayo had a brief story entitled “The HST’s total impact on BC prices well under 1%”.  The following two paragraphs are the story in its entirety:

What might he be saying? Perhaps,"I think
the effect of the HST will be about this much"

The impact varies according to your income and spending habits, but for the average British Columbian the impact of the HST has been less, according to a just-released study, than most experts predicted. And much, much less than many of the tax's critics have claimed.

Jon Kesselman, the Canada Research Chair in Pubic Finance and Simon Fraser University, has calculated the overall impact on the price of consumer purchases at 0.6 per cent, based on StatsCan data on price changes and spending patterns, and factoring in inflation.

I guess perhaps columnists for the Vancouver Sun make enough money they can just kiss off any increase the provincial government decides to throw at us.  Stating that the impact of the HST has only amounted to an increase of .6% of course does make it sound very small … but let’s look at this in “real” dollars and cents.