Analysis: B.C. Conservatives get Caroline Elliott after all

Former B.C. Conservative leadership candidate Caroline Elliott will run in the Oct. 24 provincial election. Photo by Stuart McNish/Conversations That Matter

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The tables have turned.

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Four months ago, Caroline Elliott lost the B.C. Conservative leadership to Kerry-Lynne Findlay on a 51-49 fourth-ballot runoff. Findlay is gone. Elliott is now on the ballot in West Vancouver-Capilano, her North Shore turf, in the snap election Premier David Eby called for Oct. 24.

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“If I was ready to jump in for leadership and lead the party — and ultimately, in an ideal world, the province,” she told me early Monday, “then I should be able to step up for my local riding.”

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Eagle-eyed readers will note that I wrote about Elliott just last week, when she hadn’t yet confirmed she was running. She’s an important figure in this election, which is important for B.C., and I wanted to speak with her to follow up.

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Lorne Doerkson, the interim leader the party board says will stay on if Conservatives win, gets her “full-hearted endorsement.” I asked, bluntly, about her own ambitions. She lost a knife-edge race to someone who did not last. There is not a whiff of woe-is-me.

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“It’s funny,” she says. “I don’t know if I’m as ambitious as people think. I’m really driven on the issues, but if I can drive them in a different way, I’ve never felt that it had to be, you know, me at the top of the totem pole.”

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Doerkson, she says, is the right person. “He’s such a good and decent man.” It is not only his legislative and business experience, “he brings an authenticity B.C. is ready for after years of David Eby, who does not present in the same way at all.”

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“If he earns a mandate from the public of British Columbia, then I think it would be entirely reasonable for him to say that’s mandate enough to continue leading the party.”

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She does not need the title; she wants the files. She is comfortable Doerkson cares about many of the same ones. “I feel pretty comfortable that I’ll be able to pursue those things under his leadership.”

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She jumped into this race because commentary — she is a founder of Without Diminishment on Substack and a sometime contributor to National Post — is not the same as a vote in caucus. “I can write about [these issues] all day, I can post videos about them all day, I can speak at events about them all day, but the most effective way, I think, is to have a seat at the table where you’re really driving them.”

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“That’s what I want to bring, is that voice at the table, explaining, all the time, the crucial importance of things like: what’s happening in our education system and how important it is when it comes to a whole generation of future citizens; the importance of bringing up things like the criminal justice system, which is more than just a catch-and-release program, there’s an underlying philosophy that’s I think cultural in nature.”

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Then there are the Indigenous rights and land files she has been on for years. British Columbians, she says, are nervous about private property after the Cowichan title decision, and they understand the economic bite of DRIPA.