All Parties Play a Part in BC’s Political Gong Show

The B.C. legislature is back today for the second week of the fall session, after a start that should leave you feeling ripped off.

The 93 MLAs are supposed to be in Victoria to talk about issues that matter to the people back home in their ridings.

The BC NDP government set the tone for the first week. Barely an hour after the session began, NDP MLA Rohini Arora introduced a motion.

“That this House condemns the intolerant views of the Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA), including its harmful discrimination against transgender people, its belief that homosexuality is ‘immoral’ and its explicit policy goal of restricting abortion access in British Columbia,” it read.

ARPA should be condemned. Like other religious extremist organizations around the world, it aims to impose its version of Christianity on everyone else. It wants to ban the morning-after birth control pill and limit abortion access, challenges medical assistance in dying, targets trans people and would ban gay marriage.

But that’s not why Arora introduced the motion.

In April Chilliwack North Conservative MLA Heather Maahs hosted a reception at the legislature for ARPA, attended by about a dozen Conservative MLAs and leader John Rustad.

But other Conservatives denounced the party’s involvement with ARPA.

Arora’s motion was aimed at highlighting divisions among the B.C. Conservatives.

It worked. But I wonder if her constituents in Burnaby East would have chosen that as the priority for their MLA?

Rustad ordered the party MLAs to walk out of the legislature to avoid a vote that would further divide the party.

But that too divided the party. Rustad has promised since the party’s relaunch that MLAs could vote their conscience. But as Mo Amir wrote in The Tyee, that commitment collapsed at the first real test.

Then things got worse. The Conservatives gathered for a caucus meeting, which quickly went south. Some MLAs wanted a secret vote on Rustad’s leadership, which was blocked.

And former BC Liberal MLA Jas Johal, now a broadcaster, was posting what were clearly leaks from inside the caucus meeting about the rebellion. Caucus deliberations are supposed to be confidential.

Then things got even weirder, as Rustad demanded MLAs hand their phones over to be searched in a bid to identify the source of the leak.

Bizarrely, apparently most agreed. I cannot imagine a workplace I’ve been in where a leader would demand to search the team’s phones. Or one where they would agree.

But don’t say Rustad’s paranoid. A reporter raised that at a press event and chief of staff Brad Zubyk called it a “bullshit question” and said the reporter would not be allowed to ask questions in the future. (Zubyk is a longtime lobbyist and political operative whose past work with the NDP and BC Liberals alarms some Conservatives.)

The imploding Conservatives are a gift to Premier David Eby. With a competent official Opposition, he’d be facing hard questions — and media reporting — on the deficit, the seven-week BC General Employees’ Union strike, the forest industry crisis, health-care struggles and other issues.

Instead, the Conservatives’ misadventures have grabbed the headlines.

OneBC also contributed its act to the follies. MLA Tara Armstrong introduced an anti-trans bill and pledged “it will end this unbelievable era of indoctrination and medical malpractice.” A majority of MLAs voted to reject it, a rare occurrence.

And in support of the bill OneBC hosted Billboard Chris, a Vancouver anti-trans activist whose shtick involves showing up in public — often at pro-trans events — wearing billboards attacking gender reassignment. Chris Elston, who doesn’t believe trans people exist, is active on social media and records his confrontations. He says he’s been assaulted about 25 times as he travels North America, which doesn’t suggest a lot of success in changing minds.

Perhaps MLAs will do better this week.

If not, it’s time to consider moving from the legislative chamber to a circus tent on the front lawn.