A Facebook post by Gordon F.D. Wilson, the BC Liberal leader who was pushed aside in 1993 by big business interests who wished to install the more submissive Gordon Campbell. Wilson’s comments are so good they are worth repeating here.

I rarely break a promise, especially not one that I made to myself, but sometimes something so egregious occurs that I cannot sit by and not write something.

Today, the Leader of the Official Opposition in the BC Legislative Assembly, Kevin Falcon, arbitrarily, without caucus consent or the consent of candidates already successfully nominated, held a press conference with John Rustad, the leader of the BC Conservatives, a party that has not elected a member to the legislature since 1978, to declare that the Official Opposition party BC United was going to “suspend” its provincial campaign and withdraw all its candidates in favour of the Conservatives.

If that sounds a bit ridiculous, that’s because it is.

And yet, this is what politics in BC has returned to; the 1949—the year I was born—days of coalition designed with only one purpose, to keep the CCF (later NDP) from forming government.

In the Falcon/Rustad press conference, Falcon stated that he made this decision because he believed that Premier Eby was so far left and his policies so dangerous to the wellbeing of British Columbians that this action would provide a better opportunity for the Conservatives to defeat him at the polls.

The staggering arrogance of this statement speaks volumes about the state of politics in BC today.

It’s not Falcon’s call; that decision should be left up to the voters of BC. Falcon’s responsibility was to put forward an alternative vision well thought out, with proper accounting, and easily understood, such that it would appeal to the voters and encourage their participation to get out and make the alternative vision of new British Columbia come to fruition.

If Falcon couldn’t meet that test, then he should have stepped aside and provided an opportunity for someone else within the party to step forward and lead.

But providing sound leadership and doing the hard work toward creating a realistic and inclusive vision for British Columbians that would inspire the BC electorate to engage has nothing to do with this action.

We were told within the news conference this was about protecting free enterprise, which is under threat from the Eby government.

But it isn’t.

Free enterprise involves competition and choice within the marketplace. Falcon’s actions have just removed choice from the ballot.

We were told that having two “right-wing” candidates on the ballot would split the non-NDP vote and elect the Eby government. What they are saying is that they don’t trust the voter to make an informed decision on which candidate would best represent their riding.

What is taking place in BC is a trend worldwide.

I call it manufactured democracy.

It has nothing to do with free enterprise and everything to do with powerful influencers who finance political campaigns by hedging their investments to try to guarantee outcomes.

It is the antithesis of democracy, private agenda-driven, and threatens to undermine open, free, and fair elections.

How the final set of candidates are selected and who is going to do the selection are questions that remain unanswered. So is the matter of the fate of what was once the BC Liberal Party, now BC United.

The Election Act defines a political party as “an organization that has as a primary purpose the fielding of candidates in provincial elections.” So where does that leave BC United, that on the order of its leader, is sitting this one out?

The argument has been made that nominated candidates who will be replaced are those who stood little or no chance of election anyway.

In 1991, nobody gave me a snowball’s chance in hell of being elected, to say nothing of the other sixteen who joined me in the legislative assembly under the BC Liberal banner. And, despite those who believe it all happened because of a debate performance, I can tell you it didn’t.

It happened because those of us who had witnessed the destructiveness of polarized politics in British Columbia and believed there was a place for a moderate, economically conservative, and socially progressive middle party worked our backsides off to provide that option with the BC Liberal Party. It was a party that had a progressive platform, with practical ideas and solutions for the problems we all faced.

It was a party that believed in something more than defeating the NDP.

I predict that this move will seriously backfire on those so arrogant as to believe that they, not the voters, know what’s best for this province.

There are solutions to even the most difficult problems facing British Columbians, and those solutions, come from a wide variety of contributors, each of whom deserves to be heard.

In every election dozens of candidates put their names forward, with little or no hope of success, just to enter the debate and have their voices heard, precisely because they have something intelligent and useful to say.

They make up the broader democratic constituency, and from those voices come lasting solutions to very complex problems. Why? Because their opinions matter!

Hand-picking candidates and removing others from the ballot to try to manufacture an outcome is something that, regrettably, I have come to expect in those countries that lean toward autocracy.

Events in BC politics over the last decade have demonstrated that we are too close to that very slippery slope.

I vowed I would stay out of the political debate. But this is a step too far, at least I believe it is, for those of us who believe that for us to meet the challenges within the modern social contract we need to stand upon a solid foundation of principles and not drift upon a tide of opportunism, top-down authority, and the stifling of a full spectrum political debate.

I am truly sad for BC.