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

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.

“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.”

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.

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.

“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.”

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.”

“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.”

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.”

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.”

“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.”

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.

The party wanted her, she says, because those ideas “have a place in the party” — and because she had a lot of support in the leadership race. They want members to see “this party is representative of what they’ve previously voted for or shown interest in.”

She knows voters also want the kitchen-table list. “There’s a crazy cost of living crisis in British Columbia, especially in the Vancouver area,” plus health care and schools. “We’re going to be needing to talk about a range of issues.”

Running where she can actually come home to was the other condition. Her daughter is nine, her son six. “I’m going to be away from home a lot, I’m going to be in Victoria a lot. If we’re fortunate enough to form government, there’s a lot of work to be done around the province for all of us. All I kept thinking was … when I come home to my riding, I really want to come home. I want to be able to involve my kids in local constituency issues, events, things like, you know, the Canada Day Parade or our pumpkin festival here in West Van.”

To make that possible, the party moved incumbent Lynne Block out of West Vancouver-Capilano — a Conservative gain in 2024 — and into neighbouring North Vancouver-Seymour, an NDP seat. Elliott is grateful Block took the harder assignment; the two have already talked about how to win both.

She pushed hard to lead the party; she sounds at peace running in the one riding she loves. The work is still hard but the toll on her family is smaller. “So I’m going to work hard, but I’m also going to enjoy it.”

“You have to find the wins where you see them, and I certainly feel fortunate.”

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