Yuri Fulmer worded the position of the BC Conservative Party plainly.
Mathematically, to win the next election, the Conservatives will have to appeal to some centrists and convince people who voted for the NDP or the Greens in 2024 to vote Tory instead, said Fulmer, a candidate in the ongoing Conservative leadership race, at an appearance at Vernon’s 1516 Pub and Grill March 28.
He added, somewhat paradoxically, that the Conservatives will also need to appeal to those further to the right of them on the political spectrum.
“We have OneBC right now under Dallas Brodie’s leadership — OneBC’s polling eight to 13 per cent. If they can get eight to 13 percent in an election, game over, we lose,” Fulmer stated. “(OneBC) won’t win a seat, but at 3.5 per cent we lose the election and they’re polling eight to 13 right now.”
Fulmer described this electoral predicament just two days before he struck a deal with Brodie and OneBC to not compete with each other in the next provincial election, should Fulmer be voted in as party leader. The deal, called the Unite the Right Accord, would see the BC Conservatives run in 88 ridings and OneBC run in five, with the parties refraining from competing in the same ridings.
In the same joint announcement, Brodie threw her “full support” behind Fulmer for premier.
Between the March 30 deal and Fulmer’s comments in Vernon a couple days earlier, Fulmer has signalled his concern about right-of-centre vote splitting in the next election.
In Vernon, he also signalled that he has close ties to Brodie both personally and politically, and said of all the candidates for the top Conservative job, he is the one most likely to bridge the divide between OneBC’s supporters and those of the Official Opposition party he’s looking to lead.
He left the door open for a full reconciliation between the Conservatives and OneBC (the latter was exiled from the former under previous Conservative leader John Rustad over its controversial views, including skepticism over residential schools and Indigenous reconciliation efforts) and said he’s the ideal candidate to broker such a reunion.
“I’ve known Dallas for way longer than either of us have ever been in politics. I consider Dallas a friend. Dallas and my politics are the closest (out of) any of the candidates,” Fulmer said in response to a member of the public who’d asked how he would bring Brodie and OneBC back into the Conservative fold. “If you want a shot at uniting us, I think I’m that shot.”
The March 30 deal between Fulmer and Brodie showed a willingness among both to work together, but also cast doubt over the possibility of the two parties merging. In the joint statement, Brodie said OneBC will “proudly remain an Independent party.” The party’s communications director, Wyatt Claypool, said OneBC “isn’t going away…we have our own unique voters.”
Fulmer shares views
Fulmer spoke in front of a crowd of nearly 50 people and answered questions for about half an hour at the March 28 Vernon event. He took aim at the NDP government’s $13.5 billion deficit this year, lamenting increases in the size of government while naming his business experience as an asset towards reversing provincial debt should he become premier.
“It’s completely unsustainable,” Fulmer said. “We’ve got to grow our way out of this, we’ve got to grow our economy, we’ve got to make sure that we rationalize government.”
Fulmer was asked about the opioid crisis and said it’s now prevalent “everywhere,” and mandatory care is the solution.
“It’s time for compassionate, but mandatory, treatment,” Fulmer stated, echoing Kelowna-Mission MLA Gavin Dew, who said as much at a Conservative townhall in Vernon 10 days before Fulmer was in town.
Fulmer claimed that British Columbians who go through detox programs have to wait two weeks to access a bed at a rehabilitation facility.
“Two weeks is a lifetime if you’re addicted to fentanyl,” he said.
More detox spaces and rehab beds, and an all-out effort against fentanyl is needed, Fulmer argued.
“We’ve got to stop (fentanyl) at the ports. The people who deal in it, we’ve got to throw the book at them and keep them in check. And our brothers and our sisters and our neighbours who are addicts, we need to pick them up and we need to help them whether they want it or not.”
The leadership race
The Morning Star previously spoke to Conservative leadership candidates Iain Black and Peter Milobar, both of whom underlined their experience in politics, something Fulmer lacks.
When asked how he believes he stands out next to these and the other leadership candidates, Fulmer touted his extensive experience in the private sector and the fiscal responsibility he’s been taught by that environment.
“I’ve been in business for 30 years next year, I’ve got two and a half thousand employees,” Fulmer said.
“I know what it means to have somebody say, ‘my family’s livelihood depends on the decisions you make possible,’ so I want to do that for 5.7 million British Columbians.”
Fulmer said his long experience as a community volunteer is also relevant to this race.
He’s the global chair of United Way, “a six and a half billion-dollar charity in 34 countries with a million volunteers,” he said. “And our job is to help communities lift themselves up. Not just the poorest people, not just the people who are least fortunate in our society, but to lift everybody up.”
Being in business for nearly 30 years implies an understanding that “revenue has to equal expense,” said Fulmer, “which I’d like to bring to the province as well.”
The Conservative leadership race wraps up May 30.
The next provincial election isn’t scheduled to take place until October 2028, but it could be held sooner.
— With files from Mark Page