Reform Party of British Columbia

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The Reform Party of British Columbia (Reform BC) is a populist right wing political party in British Columbia, Canada. Although its name was chosen to reflect the Reform Party of Canada, and there was overlap between the two parties' policy and supporters, it never had any formal association with the federal party.

1 Founding
2 Decline
3 Failed merger into BC Unity
4 Failed merger into Democratic Reform BC
5 Party leaders
6 See also
7 External link

[edit] Founding

Reform BC was formed in the early 1980s and registered its name with the B.C. Corporations Branch in 1983, before the creation of the Reform Party of Canada. The party's first candidates ran in the 1991 provincial election, when four candidates stood in the 75 ridings, receiving 2,673 votes, or 0.18% of the popular vote. That election saw the collapse of the British Columbia Social Credit Party, which declined to seven Members of the Legislative Assembly, four of these seven defected to Reform. This was done in part to capitalize on the popularity of the Reform Party of Canada. Despite attempts to take over Social Credit, Reform was unable to absorb it and lay claim to the right side of the political spectrum.

In the May 28, 1996 election, the party nominated candidates in all of the province’s 75 ridings, and collected 146,734 votes (9.27% of the popular vote). The party retained two seats in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, but two of their sitting MLAs were defeated.

[edit] Decline

Many blamed Reform for splitting the right wing vote and helping the New Democratic Party of British Columbia under Glen Clark get re-elected. The leader, Jack Weisgerber decided to step down as leader. At the August 30, 1997 leadership convention in Surrey, Wilf Hanni was elected leader over John Motiuk and Adrian Wade. Hanni, an oil industry worker, alienated both of the MLAs and drove them out of the party. Richard Neufeld crossed to the BC Liberals, and is now a cabinet minister. Jack Weisgerber is now a director for BC Hydro, the power utility owned by the provincial government. The loss of the two MLAs was the effective end of the party.

[edit] Failed merger into BC Unity

Following Hanni's resignation, at the November 12-13, 1999 leadership convention, former Social Credit premier Bill Vander Zalm was acclaimed as leader of the party. Vander Zalm attempted to orchestrate a merger of Reform with other right-wing parties, but ran into stiff opposition from a centrist old guard. Following some controversy over paperwork submission deadlines, the Reform Party was de-registered as a BC political party in February 2001. At the time, they were in second place in the polls, with a one percentage point lead over the NDP, and had been in second place for the previous year.

The Vander Zalm wing of the party later joined with members of four other right-wing parties (the British Columbia Social Credit Party, the British Columbia Conservative Party, the British Columbia Party, and the Family Coalition Party of British Columbia) to form the BC Unity Party, while other members re-registered "Reform BC" and swung back to the political centre.

In the 2001 provincial election, the Reform Party nominated eight candidates, who received a total of 3,008 votes (2.03% of the total vote) in the ridings in which they ran. Reform received over 2% of the vote in five ridings. Its best result was in Surrey-Green Timbers, where the party won 3.5% of the vote.

[edit] Failed merger into Democratic Reform BC

In 2004, Reform BC became involved in efforts to create a new centrist coalition. On January 16, 2005, the Democratic Reform British Columbia (DRBC) party was created, taking much of Reform's executive with it. Other members of the party, however, have decided to continue Reform BC.

The difference of opinion between the group that left for DRBC and those continuing Reform BC appears to revolve around three issues: