BC Conservatives rejected coalition with BC United to avoid handing victory to NDP.
The BC Conservative Party felt a deal with the Official Opposition would hand the NDP government an election victory this fall.
BC United said it presented a non-competition framework that would keep the parties separate, but form a coalition government if they combined for enough seats to defeat the NDP on Oct. 19.“They put an offer on the table to do this non competition, and we looked at it thought all this will do is lead to an NDP government, so we can’t support that,” Rustad said.
In a statement, Falcon blamed Rustad for prioritizing "his own ambition" in rejecting the offer and noted Rustad turned down the United proposal without making a counter-offer. He said the Conservatives reached out to the BCU in December and February about a potential merger, but their team members were met with hostile responses from BCU representatives – claiming they were told to ‘F#ck Off’ in December and in February, that Falcon would dictate the terms of talks.
Asked if there’s concern of vote splitting in the absence of a deal with the BC United, Rustad told Castanet the Conservatives are “fighting to win this election.” The deal would’ve seen the Conservatives run 47 candidates and the United 46 as they have more incumbents to protect.
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