In British Columbia, organized Indigenous groups hold significant political sway that extends beyond Indigenous issues. The provincial government consults them as a moral authority on a wide range of topics, effectively granting them powerful influence over policy and personnel decisions.
BC's political culture is exceptionally progressive, resembling Washington, Oregon, and California more than other Canadian provinces. This unique environment attracts activists and progressives from across the country and the world, creating a feedback loop that intensifies its radical policies.
The 2021 claim about 215 child graves in Kamloops, despite lacking physical evidence, has become a foundational myth in BC. Politicians and professionals are expected to affirm it as truth. Voicing skepticism, even when factually correct, is treated as heresy, leading to immediate professional ostracization.
In a surprising move, the BC Conservatives appointed Alia Warbus, an Indigenous transgender activist, as their House Leader. This highlights the immense pressure within BC's political landscape for all parties, regardless of ideology, to signal allegiance to progressive causes like trans activism and Indigenous reconciliation.
The BC Conservative Party's rapid rise was followed by an equally rapid collapse. In a bid for mainstream electability, its leadership recruited candidates from a collapsing centre-right party. This created a caucus of "dogs and cats" with fundamentally opposed views on cultural issues, leading to infighting and paralysis.
In Canada, party leaders can directly approve or reject local candidates, a stark contrast to the US primary system. This allows leaders to prioritize "electability" by installing moderate candidates, but as seen with BC's Conservatives, this can destroy a party's ideological foundation and lead to internal collapse.
After being expelled from the BC Conservative Party, politician Dallas Brody co-founded a new party, only to be temporarily thrown out of it as well. She attributes this to a "woke right" faction that, in her view, mirrors the progressive left's tactics of enforcing ideological purity and punishing dissent.
Historically, BC's New Democratic Party (NDP) was rooted in blue-collar resource industries. The rise of a post-industrial economy has transformed its base into public sector unions (e.g., teachers) and social justice constituencies, driving its increasingly progressive policy agenda.