By R. Paul Dhillon – Editor DESIBUZZCanada

Saturday (tomorrow) is Election Day in BC but we already have a list of the big winners and losers and the biggest winner in this political fight has to be John Rustad, who beat out his chief rightwing rival Kevin Falcon by simply having a better political brand than former BC Liberal Falcon who chose to go with a “no-name” brand BC United Party, which turned out to be a disaster for him.

Falcon made one of the worst choices in changing party names from BC Liberals to BC United and that sealed his fate as the guy he kicked out of the party Rustad just chose a better name under the Conservative banner and he’s now the big winner in this right wing fight even though Falcon was perhaps a better leader to represent the right wing or free enterprise. 

But Falcon had no choice to drop out and let Rustad fly the rightwing flag when the big power players forced his hand to step down because a divided right wing vote would bring the NDP back in big numbers as last time. It’s the Jim Pattison types who forced Falcon’s hand, all because he chose a party name that turned to dust and now BC United is in the dustbin and Falcon unceremoniously given a kick out of politics. 

Politics is a cruel battleground and Falcon knew he had it coming for a long while after political winds swung away from his no-name party to the one that has a same colours as the surging Conservative Party federally. 

Now Rustad will form a decent or even a strong opposition by winning a significant number of seats but he is too far away from snatching power from the NDP with his wacky mix of “out-there” candidates, yes the racist ones that Rustad dithered on instead of canning them, as well many conspiracy-nut un-winnable ones, including some from the South Asian community. 

Rustad’s got a mix bag of policies some of which are ok but others that do not have many takers like the usual rightwing take on health care (the private kind) and promising to gut ICBC. Regardless Rustad is the winner and Crown Prince of the right after easily taking out his main rival Falcon by simply choosing a better political brand for his party.

But those who seek a natural alternative to NDP should bring back a sober Brand of more Liberal and less Conservative (the wacky and conspiratorial Conservative brand under Rustad) by perhaps returning to the BC Liberal banner that was a mix of free enterprise and socially conscious. 

Mind you that may take another win in four years by the NDP who’ve found their mojo with public pleasing policies of giving voters money, renters their due and keeping businesses relatively happy (not including the roaring construction-real estate beasts) to find that sweet middle ground where power politics thrives!

R. Paul Dhillon is an award-winning journalist and former editor of The South Asian LINK, VOICE, AAJ, Darpan and other publications. He is also an award-winning filmmaker and editor-founder of DESIBUZZCanada and DESIBUZZbc.