Early partisan years: 1903–1916 The Liberal Association of British Columbia, a formal provincial branch of the
Liberal Party of Canada, held
its first leadership convention in Vancouver in February 1902. That convention foreshadowed the decades of complex and delicate relations between the provincial party and the national party. Controversial
Vancouver City MLA
"Fighting Joe" Martin, briefly a non-partisan premier who also served as a Liberal MP and MLA in Manitoba, was elected leader on the first ballot against the wish of
Clifford Sifton, Laurier's lieutenant for western Canada and an old foe of Martin (from their time as Manitoba MLAs and successive attorneys general, and from Martin's resentment for not having been invited to join Laurier's cabinet) after Sifton's ally Senator
William Templeman, the provincial party chairman, lost control of the convention credentialing and was ousted by
George Ritchie Maxwell, the MP for
Burrard and a Martin ally. Far from a unifying figure, Martin would resign in June the following year before having led the party through an election. In anticipation of an imminent election call, the party brass opted not to call a leadership convention, leaving the leadership question for the post-election caucus to decide.
First government: 1916–1928 The divided Conservatives faced the Liberals in the
election of 1916 and lost. The Liberals formed a government under
Harlan Carey Brewster. Brewster had become leader of the Opposition and was elected party leader in March 1912. He lost his seat a few weeks later in the 1912 election, which returned no Liberals at all. In 1916, he won election to the legislature again through a by-election and led his party to victory in a general election later that year by campaigning on a reform platform. Brewster promised to end patronage in the
civil service, end
political machines, improve workman's compensation and labour laws, bring in votes for women, and other progressive reforms. The government brought in
women's suffrage, instituted
prohibition, and combated
political corruption before his unexpected death in 1918. He is interred in the
Ross Bay Cemetery in
Victoria, British Columbia.
John Oliver succeeded Brewster as
premier when Brewster died in 1918. Oliver's government developed the produce industry in the
Nanook Valley, and tried to persuade the
federal government to lower the freight rate for rail transport. The party managed a bare majority win in the
1920 election and only managed to govern after the
1924 election with the support of the two Independent Liberals.
Opposition and the Great Depression: 1928–1933 The Liberals managed to increase their vote in the 1928 election but lost close to half their seats. With the onset of the
Great Depression and the implosion of the government of
Simon Fraser Tolmie, the Liberals won the
1933 election.
Duff Pattullo: 1933–1941 The 1933 election brought into power
Duff Pattullo and introduced into the legislature the
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), a new
social-democratic and
democratic socialist opposition party. Pattullo wanted an activist government to try to deal with the depression through social programs and support of the unemployed. Canada has been recognized as the hardest hit by the
Great Depression, and
western Canada the hardest hit within Canada. Pattullo's attempts were often at odds with the federal government in
Ottawa. Pattullo was also an advocate for British Columbia, and suggested the annexation of
Yukon by BC, and the construction of the
Alaska Highway to reduce the power of eastern Canada over BC. In the
1937 general election, his government was re-elected running on the slogan of "
socialized capitalism".
"The Coalition": 1941–1951 The alternating government with the Conservatives came to an end with the rise of the CCF, who managed to be the Official Opposition from 1933 to 1937 and were one seat less than the Conservatives in the
1937 election. In the
1941 election, the CCF came second. The election did not give the Liberals the majority they hoped for.
John Hart became the premier and Liberal leader in 1941 when Pattullo refused to go into
coalition with the Conservatives. The Liberal members removed Patullo as leader and Hart formed a Liberal–
Conservative coalition government, known in BC history as "the Coalition". From 1941 to 1945, Hart governed at a time of wartime scarcity, when all major government projects were postponed. The coalition government was re-elected in the
1945 election. In that contest, Liberals and Conservatives ran under the same banner. After 1945, Hart undertook an ambitious program of rural electrification,
hydroelectric and highway construction. Hart's most significant projects were the construction of
Highway 97 to northern British Columbia (of which the
Prince George–
Dawson Creek segment is now named in his honour) and the
Bridge River Power Project, which was the first major hydroelectric development in British Columbia. He established the BC Power Commission, a forerunner of
BC Hydro, to provide power to smaller communities that were not serviced by private utilities. In December 1947, Hart retired as premier. The Conservative Party agitated for its leader,
Herbert Anscomb, to succeed Hart as premier. Still, the Liberals outnumbered the Tories in the coalition caucus. Hart was followed by another Liberal,
Boss Johnson, with Anscomb as deputy premier and
minister of finance. Johnson's government introduced universal hospital insurance and a 3% provincial sales tax to pay for it. It expanded the highway system, extended the
Pacific Great Eastern Railway, and negotiated the
Alcan Agreement, which facilitated construction of the Kenny Dam. The government also coped with the 1948 flooding of the Fraser River, declaring a state of emergency and beginning a program of diking the river's banks through the Fraser Valley. Johnson is also noted for appointing
Nancy Hodges as the first female Speaker in the
Commonwealth. The Liberal-Conservative coalition government won the
1949 election – at 61% the greatest percentage of the popular vote in BC history. Tensions had grown between the coalition partners and within both parties. The Liberal Party executive voted to terminate the coalition and Johnson dropped his Conservative ministers in January 1952, resulting in a short-lived
minority government which soon collapsed.
1952 election In order to prevent the CCF from winning in a three-party competition, the government introduced
instant-runoff voting, with the expectation that Conservative voters would list the Liberals as their second choice and vice versa. Voters, however, were looking for alternatives. More voters chose
British Columbia Social Credit League ahead of any other party as their second choice. Social Credit went on to emerge as the largest party when the ballots were counted in the
1952 general election. Social Credit's
de facto leader during the election,
W. A. C. Bennett, formerly a Conservative, was formally named party leader after the election. At the
1953 general election, the Liberals were reduced to four seats, taking 23.36% of the vote.
Arthur Laing defeated
Tilly Rolston in Vancouver Point Grey. Although Social Credit won a majority of seats in the legislature, their finance minister
Einar Gunderson was defeated in
Oak Bay by
Philip Archibald Gibbs of the Liberals.
Gordon Gibson Sr, a millionaire timber baron, nicknamed the "Bull of the Woods", was elected for
Lillooet as a Liberal.
Third party status: 1953–1979 During the early period of this time, the Liberals' most prominent member was
Gordon Gibson Sr. He was a
cigar-smoking and gregarious logging contractor who could have been premier but for a major political error. He was elected in 1953 for the Lillooet riding. In 1955, the
Sommers scandal surfaced, and he was the only leader in the legislature to make an issue of it. W. A. C. Bennett and his attorney general tried many tactics to stop the information from coming out. In frustration, Gibson resigned his seat and forced a by-election, hoping to make the Sommers scandal the issue. The voting system had changed, and he came a close second after Social Credit. In the
1956 election, with the Sommers scandal still not resolved, the Liberals fared worse than in 1953.
Arthur Laing lost his seat, and the party was reduced to two MLAs and 20.9% of the vote. In the
1960 election, the party won four seats with the same 20.9% of the popular vote as in 1956. In the
1963 election, the party's caucus increased by one more MLA to five, but their share of the popular vote fell to 19.98%. In the
1966 election, the party won another seat, bringing its caucus to six, and had an increase in the vote to 20.24%. In the
1969 vote, the party lost one seat, and its share of the vote fell to 19.03%. In 1972, the party was led into the election by a new leader,
David Anderson, who had been elected in the
1968 federal election as an MP for the
Liberal Party of Canada. He and four others managed to be elected to the legislature, but with the lowest vote in party history at 16.4%. After the
British Columbia New Democratic Party (BC NDP) won the
1972 election, many supporters of the Liberal and Conservative parties defected to the Social Credit League. This coalition was able to keep the New Democrats out of power from 1975 until the 1990s. MLAs
Garde Gardom,
Pat McGeer and Allan Williams left the Liberals for Social Credit along with
Hugh Curtis of the suddenly rejuvenated Tories. All of them became members of Social Credit Cabinets after 1975. In the
1975 election, the only Liberal to be elected was
Gordon Gibson Jr. as the party scored a dismal 7.24%. David Anderson was badly defeated in his Victoria riding, placing behind the New Democrats and Social Credit.
In the wilderness: 1979–1991 The 1979 election was the party's lowest point. For the second time in party history, it was shut out of the legislature. Only five candidates ran, none were elected, and the party got 0.5% of the vote. The
1983 election saw a small recovery as the party came close to a full slate of candidates, but won 2.69% of the vote. The
1986 vote was the third and last election in which the party was shut out. Its share of the popular vote improved to 6.74%. In 1987,
Gordon Wilson became the leader of the provincial Liberal Party when no one else was interested. Wilson severed formal links between the provincial Liberal party and its
federal counterpart. On November 3, 2010, facing an imminent caucus revolt over his management style and the political backlash against the
Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) and the controversial end to the
BC Rail corruption trial and with his approval rating as low as 9% in polls, Gordon Campbell announced his resignation.
Clark government: 2011–2017 The party's
2011 leadership convention was prompted by
Gordon Campbell's request to the party to hold a leadership convention "at the earliest possible date". The convention elected
Christy Clark as its new leader of the party on February 26, 2011. Clark and her new Cabinet were sworn in on March 14. Under Clark, the party charted a more centrist outlook while continuing its recent tradition of being a coalition of federal Liberal and federal Conservative supporters. She immediately raised the minimum wage from $8/hour to $10.25/hour and introduced a province-wide
Family Day similar to Ontario's. Clark became premier during the aftermath of the 2008–09 recession and continued to hold the line on government spending, introducing two deficit budgets before a balanced one for the 2013–14 fiscal year, which included a tax hike on high-income British Columbians. She also sought to take advantage of BC's liquified natural gas (LNG) reserves, positioning the budding LNG industry as a major economic development opportunity over the next decade. While the final years of Gordon Campbell's administration had seen far-reaching and progressive environmental legislation enacted, Clark was more measured in her approach to environmental policy. While continuing with BC's first-in-North-America carbon tax, she promised to freeze the rate during the
2013 election and her LNG development aspirations seemed to contradict greenhouse gas emissions targets set by the Campbell government in 2007. She also announced in 2012 that any future pipeline that crosses BC would have to meet five conditions that included environmental requirements and Indigenous consultation. Controversially, she indicated that one of her five conditions would be that BC receives its "fair share" of any revenues that accrue from increased pipeline and tanker traffic. This has put her in direct conflict with the province of Alberta, who sought increased market access for its bitumen through BC ports, yet adamantly refuse any arrangement which would see BC receive any royalties. In 2011,
Colin Hansen proposed the party change its name in order to avoid confusion with the unrelated
Liberal Party of Canada and to better reflect its status as a coalition of many federal
Conservative and Liberal voters. He did not propose an alternative name. Clark said she would consider a name change but was not in "any rush to do it". On May 29, 2017, after final vote counting had completed, the
BC NDP and the
BC Green Party agreed to a
confidence and supply agreement to ensure a stable minority government. Their combined 44 seats give them an advantage over the BC Liberals' 43, which was sufficient to
defeat Clark's government on a confidence vote on June 29, 2017, after which Clark resigned as premier (effective July 18, 2017) and the lieutenant governor asked NDP leader
John Horgan to form a government.
Rich Coleman became the party's interim leader following Clark's resignation.
Official Opposition under Wilkinson and Bond: 2018–2022 Andrew Wilkinson was
elected party leader on February 3, 2018. He served as leader of the Opposition for two years. During the
2020 general election, Wilkinson was criticized by party members, including the membership chair, for his delay in removing
Laurie Throness, a candidate and former MLA who had made anti-LGBTQ statements. After the party was defeated in the election, he resigned.
Shirley Bond served as the party's interim leader until the
2022 leadership contest.
Falcon leadership, name change, and campaign suspension: since 2022 Kevin Falcon, deputy premier under Clark, was elected leader of the BC Liberals on February 5, 2022. After a province-wide survey, "BC United" was put forward as the potential new name for the party. The name was then put to party members on November 13, and on November 16, it was announced that the name change had been approved by roughly 80 per cent. The name change was later ratified and took effect on April 12, 2023. The name change preceded a significant drop in polling numbers for the party, with the
BC Conservatives – led by former Liberal MLA
John Rustad, who defected shortly before the name change was finalized – surpassing them as the second most popular party in the province according to polls. After polling at 33 percent in the immediate aftermath of the name change, BC United suffered a further MLA defection as BC United MLA
Bruce Banman crossed the floor to the Conservatives, as the party dropped to 19 percent in the polls, 6 points behind the Conservatives by that September. In 2024, two more BC United MLAs,
Lorne Doerkson and
Elenore Sturko, defected to the BC Conservatives. In the second quarter of 2024, the BC Conservatives surpassed United in terms of money gained from donations. In the lead-up to the
2024 election, BC United suffered further defections from members and candidates. Some thought that the name change led to voters not knowing that BC United was a continuation of the BC Liberals; a
Léger poll released in October 2023 found that a third of voters did not know about the name change. Another poll by Léger in August 2024 suggested that the party was primarily losing its traditional faction of voters who support the
Conservative Party of Canada federally to the BC Conservatives. On August 28, 2024, Falcon announced that
BC United would suspend its political campaigning, with Falcon endorsing the BC Conservatives, saying "
John Rustad and I haven't always agreed on everything, but one thing is clear: our province cannot take another four years of the NDP." Falcon said this was done to prevent
vote splitting in competitive ridings. While 18 nominated BC United candidates, including five incumbent BC United MLAs, ran for re-election as independent or unaffiliated candidates in the
2024 British Columbia general election, none were successful. Falcon remained as leader following the election. In February 2025, former BC United MLA
Karin Kirkpatrick called for him to resign, saying that his continued presence was preventing the party from rebuilding and raising funds to pay its debts. Falcon refused to resign, however, stating that a leadership contest would further drain the party's financial resources. Consequently, Kirkpatrick left the party and founded the
CentreBC party with several other former BC United MLAs. ==Party leaders==