The BC Liberal Party is no more.
In its stead is BC United, after the (now former BC Liberal) party members voted and approved a name change last fall.
The name change and branding was unveiled during a partisan rally in Surrey on Wednesday evening, while Kootenay East MLA Tom Shypitka livestreamed the event with local supporters at a restaurant in Cranbrook.
Shypitka said he was one of the first to suggest a name change during a caucus meeting in 2017.
Five years later, over 8,000 party members, delivering an 80 per cent mandate, approved the name change over a three-day vote last November.
“The [BC Liberal] name has always been confusing to me,” Shypitka said. “It’s not fair to federal Liberals, it’s not fair to federal Conservatives, because we are a unique made-in-BC brand.
“We really try to take hold of that centre-right and it’s something that I think we’ve lost in Canadian politics to be quite honest and I think this new branding really reflects what we’re trying to accomplish and that is to try to recapture the centre-right of politics in B.C.”
In terms of branding, BC United ditched the red and blue themes — often associated with the federal Liberals and Conservatives, respectively — while opting for pink and teal colours.
Shypitka spoke to local media following an address by Kevin Falcon, who delivered a stump speech to the party faithful, hitting on themes of affordability and health care, responding to random violent crime, addressing homelessness and addiction and developing the province’s natural resource sector.
The party’s future is bright, according to Shypitka. Along with the new name and branding, BC United will also be making more policy announcements in the coming weeks, he added.
“We’re going to be result-driven,” he said. “I think what we’ve seen now with the BC NDP is that they have a lot of rhetoric, they have a lot of ideas…They’ve talked about affordability right from the 2017 election, they’ve talked about 114,000 affordable homes, they’ve talked about health care, they’ve talked about homelessness and addiction, they’ve talked about crime, but what have we seen in the last six years?
“There’s no results that back up the spending that we’ve seen; we’ve seen a lot of spending, we’ve seen a lot of taxing, a lot of spending, but we’re not getting the results.”
The next mandated provincial election date is set for Oct. 19, 2024. While there has been some speculation that Premier David Eby may call an early election, he has repeatedly pledged a commitment to the fixed date.