B.C. Is Politically Homeless — Can a New Party Finally Give Voters Somewhere to Go?

The collapse of the B.C. Conservatives has opened the door to another centre-right party. But changing the name on the sign will not be enough.

By Chad Dashly | The Current

British Columbia is not short of political parties. It is short of competent government.

Families are struggling with the cost of housing, groceries and taxes. Patients are waiting too long for care. Resource communities are watching forestry jobs disappear. Small businesses are buried under costs and regulation. Meanwhile, the provincial government is forecasting a record $13.3-billion deficit.

Against that backdrop, the Official Opposition has chosen to fight itself.

Nine MLAs have left the B.C. Conservative caucus since Kerry-Lynne Findlay narrowly won the leadership in May. Five of them — Peter Milobar, Ian Paton, Rosalyn Bird, Bruce Banman and Áʼa꞉líya Warbus — are now working together to establish a new provincial party.

The group intends to have the still-unnamed party registered before the legislature returns on October 5. Milobar is acting as interim leader, and the five MLAs plan to hold an internal leadership vote and seek official third-party status. Their stated priorities include affordability, health care, taxation, resource development, the economy, and land and property rights. (Global News)

Those are the right subjects. Whether these MLAs have the discipline and courage to do anything meaningful about them is another question.

The formation of this party is not simply another episode in Victoria’s endless game of musical chairs. It reflects something much bigger: thousands of British Columbians no longer believe either major party speaks for them.

The NDP has been in power long enough to own the condition of the province. It can blame Ottawa, Donald Trump, global uncertainty or the weather, but eventually a government must be judged by results.

On affordability, health care, public safety and fiscal management, those results are not good enough.

Even the government’s own budget acknowledges that British Columbians are stretched by the cost of living and that the province faces serious fiscal pressure. Budget 2026 nevertheless commits B.C. to years of deficits while taxpayer-supported debt continues to climb. (B.C. Budget 2026)

Government spending is not inherently bad. Governments must build hospitals, schools, roads and other essential infrastructure. But record spending accompanied by deteriorating services is not an accomplishment. It is a warning.

The B.C. Conservatives should be exploiting that vulnerability. Instead, they have spent the summer demonstrating that they cannot manage their own caucus.

Findlay inherited a party that needed healing after a bruising leadership race. What it received was more division, resignations and public accusations. Senior party officials departed. MLAs walked away. The organization that came within a whisker of forming government in 2024 has been reduced from 44 elected members to 28.

That is not renewal. It is political self-destruction.

The new party believes it can provide a home for voters who are tired of the NDP but cannot support the direction of the B.C. Conservatives. Ian Paton used precisely that language when he said the goal was to give politically homeless British Columbians somewhere to go.

There is undoubtedly an opening. But there is also a trap.

British Columbia has seen this movie before. Social Credit collapsed. The B.C. Liberals assembled a broad free-enterprise coalition, governed for 16 years, renamed themselves BC United and then vanished from the electoral map. The Conservatives surged into the vacuum, only to begin tearing themselves apart almost immediately.

Another new logo, another slogan and another collection of familiar political faces will not be enough.

If this new party wants to survive, it must clearly explain why it exists.

Is it a centrist version of the B.C. Conservatives? Is it BC United with a fresh coat of paint? Is it a traditional free-enterprise coalition? Or is it simply a temporary shelter for MLAs who no longer want to sit under Findlay?

Voters deserve a straight answer.

The party must also resist the temptation to define itself only by what it is against. Saying it is not the NDP and not Kerry-Lynne Findlay is not a platform.

It needs a serious plan to control spending without gutting essential services. It needs a resource strategy that gets forestry, mining, energy and agriculture moving again. It needs credible answers on housing, crime, addiction and health-care access. It must defend property rights while building practical, respectful relationships with Indigenous communities.

Above all, it must show discipline.

British Columbians are exhausted by political theatre. They do not need another party built around personalities, grudges or leadership ambitions. They need adults who can sit around a table, disagree privately, reach decisions and then move forward together.

The opportunity facing Milobar and his colleagues is real. So is the risk.

A divided centre-right could split the opposition vote and hand the NDP another term. But a credible, practical and disciplined new party could also force every party in the province to raise its game.

That would be good for British Columbia.

The next election should not be a contest over which party frightens voters the least. It should be a serious debate about how to restore affordability, rebuild the economy, deliver dependable public services and bring basic accountability back to Victoria.

British Columbia does not need another political club.

It needs a government-in-waiting.

The new party now has an opportunity to prove it can become one.

Rethinking Weekly Dinner Rotations

Philip Wolf, editor for PQB News and the Vancouver Island Free Daily, is reflecting on why certain affordable and delicious dishes rarely make it onto the regular family menu.

After finishing two cobs of corn during a recent dinner, Wolf noted that while corn on the cob is easy to prepare, budget-friendly, and accessible throughout the year, his family only consumes it a few times annually. Canned corn appears frequently, yet fresh cobs remain an infrequent treat alongside other items like Brussels sprouts and stuffing, which often stay reserved for holiday meals like Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Holiday Foods and Seasonal Treats

Wolf observed a similar pattern with seasonal desserts and holiday staples. Items such as Nanaimo bars, Halloween chocolates, and his mother’s peach upside-down pudding cake—baked by his son each Christmas—are limited due to their rich nature. However, nutritious options like Brussels sprouts and corn on the cob could easily appear more often without waiting for special occasions.

By Chad Dashly | The Current

Benjamin Franklin supposedly walked out of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and was asked what kind of government the founders had created.

His answer has echoed across more than two centuries:

“A republic, if you can keep it.”

Maybe Franklin wasn’t speaking to 2026.

But he might as well have been.

Because America is approaching a moment when voters will be asked a question much bigger than whether they like Donald Trump, dislike Donald Trump, support Republicans or prefer Democrats.

The real question is whether the institutions of the American republic still matter.

On November 3, 2026, Americans vote in the midterm elections. Every seat in the House of Representatives will be contested, along with roughly one-third of the Senate.

Normally, midterms are about taxes, inflation, health care, immigration and whether voters are satisfied with the president.

This time feels different.

This time the issue is power.

Specifically: How much power should any American president have?

And perhaps more importantly: Who is willing to stop him when he goes too far?

The Problem Isn’t Just Trump

Donald Trump remains the most polarizing political figure in modern American history.

His supporters see a president willing to challenge institutions they believe have become arrogant, unaccountable and hopelessly disconnected from ordinary Americans.

His critics see something much darker: a president steadily testing the limits of executive authority while demanding loyalty from institutions that were designed to remain independent of him.

You don’t need to embrace every accusation levelled against Trump to recognize the danger.

Presidents are supposed to have opposition.

Congress is supposed to challenge the executive.

Courts are supposed to interpret the Constitution independently.

The Justice Department is supposed to administer justice rather than political revenge.

The media is supposed to make powerful people uncomfortable.

Those aren’t inconveniences.

They’re the system.

And when those institutions stop behaving independently, it shouldn’t matter whether the president’s name is Trump, Biden, Obama, Bush or anyone else.

Conservatives, of all people, should understand that.

Limited government cannot mean limited government only when the other party controls it.

Congress Has Forgotten Its Job

Perhaps the most troubling development in Washington is not Trump’s behaviour.

It is Congress’s willingness to surrender its own authority.

America’s founders didn’t create Congress to serve as the president’s fan club.

They created three competing branches of government precisely because they didn’t trust concentrated power.

Ambition was supposed to counter ambition.

Congress was supposed to fight for its authority.

Instead, modern American politics increasingly rewards legislators for becoming extensions of their political tribe.

When their party occupies the White House, congressional leaders defend behaviour they would have condemned had the other side done exactly the same thing.

Democrats have done it.

Republicans have done it.

And the result is an executive branch that gets stronger almost regardless of who wins elections.

That should worry everyone.

Because eventually the president you despise inherits every power you were willing to give the president you loved.

Conservatives Should Be Especially Concerned

There is an uncomfortable irony here.

For decades, conservatives argued for smaller government, constitutional limits, individual liberty and skepticism toward centralized authority.

Those ideas were right then.

They’re right now.

Yet parts of the American right increasingly seem willing to tolerate enormous executive authority so long as the person wielding it is Donald Trump.

That’s not conservatism.

That’s personality politics.

A conservative shouldn’t want a Republican king any more than a Democratic one.

The entire point of constitutional government is that good institutions protect citizens from bad leaders—and protect the country from the excesses of popular ones.

If your theory of government depends entirely upon trusting the character of the person sitting behind the Resolute Desk, you no longer have limited government.

You have faith.

America’s Institutions Are Being Tested

There is another problem developing alongside political power: economic power.

America’s technology giants have become some of the most influential institutions ever created.

They control communications platforms, cloud infrastructure, artificial intelligence, advertising networks and increasingly large portions of the information Americans consume.

That concentration deserves scrutiny regardless of whether those executives are friendly with Democrats or Republicans.

The danger isn’t simply billionaires becoming involved in politics.

Billionaires have always been involved in politics.

The danger comes when political power, technological power, financial power and media power become increasingly intertwined.

A functioning republic depends upon competing centres of authority.

When everybody with something to lose decides it is easier to accommodate political power than challenge it, accountability disappears remarkably quickly.

Courage becomes expensive.

Silence becomes profitable.

That isn’t healthy for democracy.

This Is What the Midterms Are Really About

The 2026 midterms therefore aren’t simply a referendum on Donald Trump.

They’re a referendum on checks and balances.

Americans will decide whether Congress should continue marching alongside the White House or whether Washington needs more institutional friction.

And friction isn’t necessarily dysfunction.

Sometimes friction is exactly what constitutional government requires.

Presidents hate congressional investigations.

Administrations hate hostile committees.

Political parties hate divided government.

Good.

They are supposed to.

The American system was intentionally designed to make sweeping concentrations of power difficult.

Government wasn’t supposed to operate like a corporation with a chief executive issuing orders to compliant subordinates.

It was supposed to be messy.

Slow.

Argumentative.

Frustrating.

That’s a feature, not a bug.

America Doesn’t Need Another King

There is a tendency in modern politics to treat every election as an existential event.

Lose this election and democracy ends.

Lose that election and America disappears.

Most of the time, that’s nonsense.

America has survived terrible presidents, mediocre presidents, corrupt politicians, wars, depressions, scandals and periods of astonishing political stupidity.

It will probably survive Donald Trump too.

But survival isn’t the standard.

The question is what kind of country emerges afterward.

Because republics rarely disappear overnight.

Institutions erode gradually.

Norms become optional.

Exceptional measures become routine.

Political opponents become enemies.

Executive authority expands.

Legislatures become spectators.

And eventually people discover that powers they tolerated when their side was winning have become terrifying when the other side takes control.

That is why Franklin’s warning still matters.

Keeping the Republic Is the Voters’ Job

The founders didn’t promise America permanent liberty.

They built machinery that could preserve it.

But the machinery only works if citizens demand that it work.

That means insisting presidents obey constitutional limits even when you voted for them.

It means expecting Congress to act like an independent branch of government.

It means defending courts when they issue decisions you dislike.

It means tolerating journalism that makes your side uncomfortable.

It means accepting that political opponents are still citizens.

And above all, it means remembering that America is bigger than whoever happens to occupy the White House.

Donald Trump isn’t America.

Neither is the Republican Party.

Neither is the Democratic Party.

America is the Constitution.

The institutions.

The separation of powers.

The rule of law.

And the stubborn idea that nobody—not a billionaire, not a judge, not a president—is supposed to be above them.

Franklin said America had been given a republic if it could keep it.

Nearly 240 years later, Americans are still answering him.

On November 3, they get another chance.

Footnote: Chad Dashly has a clear thesis: the issue isn’t whether you love or hate Trump; it’s whether you still believe in limited government when your own side controls it.