CentreBC party leader Mike Bernier made a brief stop in White Rock Friday afternoon, as part of what he describes as his ‘Pickup Tour’ of the province.

As he told some 40 curious residents and community movers and shakers at Morrison Cafe at Five Corners, not only are he and his wife Valerie driving in his pickup truck during the tour, he’s hoping that he will ‘pick up’ potential voters, party members and organizers for his campaign to make the party a credible option in time for the next B.C. provincial election.

While that is technically not due until 2028, the former B.C. Liberal cabinet minister (he was also a councillor and mayor in Dawson Creek before being elected MLA for Peace River South) is betting on political instincts that tell him Premier David Eby’s NDP – hearing reports of disarray in the ranks of Kerry-Lynne Findlay’s B.C. Conservative Party – may well want to jump the gun.

Before the meeting he told Peace Arch News that he feels that Centre BC can win over voters disenchanted by a political landscape that is changing faster than the names of the traditional parties.

“Everywhere I go I’m hearing the same thing from people,” he said.

“They’re saying ‘I used to vote Conservative but I’m not that kind of Conservative’, or ‘I used to vote NDP, but I don’t like the way that party is going’.

“That’s left this big hole in the middle – more like the Grand Canyon – where I think we can find support through informal, grass-roots meetings like this one.”

He dismissed talk of a reinvented BC Liberal party as little more than “nostalgia”.

“That ship has sailed,” he said, adding that advocates might as well be talking about reviving “the old days of the Socreds” (Social Credit Party, which, but for three years of an NDP government in the early1970s, ruled B.C. from 1952 to 1991)

Bernier, who served as Minister of Education from 2014 to 2017 (he exchanged some light-hearted banter at the meeting with former B.C. Liberal caucus-mate Gordon Hogg, who nonetheless endorsed Bernier’s walk-the-talk approach in the political arena) ran as an independent candidate in the 2024 B.C. general election, ultimately losing his Peace River South seat to Conservative candidate Larry Neufeld.

Describing his – and CentreBC’s – values as “fiscally conservative, socially progressive,” he acknowledged that he agrees with “70 to 80 per cent of what the NDP votes for” in terms of social programs and ensuring a social safety net, but said that despite good intentions, governments have moved away from “decisions being made for people to decisions being made for political reasons.”

Bernier, who became leader of the new party this July, admitted that he had not sought to lead CentreBC, but that his mind had been changed by the leadership race for the B.C. Conservatives.

“I was not happy with the person they chose as the leader of that party” he said, decrying what he described as “everything polarized” and “fear-tactic politics”.

Fielding questions on everything from environmental concerns, homelessness, affordable housing, addressing the overdose crisis, to early childhood mental health assessments and the possibility of granting earlier accreditation to professionals in medical, teaching and other high-demand fields, Bernier acknowledged that CentreBC is still in the process of developing policies, but would favour an approach in which experts would be consulted on policy rather than politicians.

But perhaps the most crucial question that emerged was where he stood on the possibility that CentreBC would split the anti-NDP vote.

Noting that “rumours are accurate” that many B.C. Conservative MLAs are contemplating leaving the party, Bernier said it appears evident that that party is in decline, and incapable of election to government.

That could quickly see the emergence of CentreBC as the official Opposition, Bernier predicted.

In that context, the B.C. Conservatives, rather than CentreBC, would be the ones splitting the vote, he said.

“But I don’t talk about a vote split,” he said. “That would only happen if two or three other parties started up.”

Cloverdale Reporter

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