As news cameras flashed and BC United Leader Kevin Falcon announced a seismic shift in B.C. politics that would end his political career, he thought of his two daughters, Josephine and Rose.
“I just wanted them to be proud of their dad doing what was right, not what’s easy,” an emotional Falcon said Friday in an exclusive interview with the Times Colonist.
Just two days earlier, on Tuesday at 1:30 p.m., in the leader’s office, Falcon sat for another half-hour interview with the Times Colonist.
As he rushed to eat a late lunch, he addressed personal matters and political high points.
Full of political brawn, he celebrated his B.C. Liberal party’s fiscal and infrastructure accomplishments since 2001 — he served as minister of deregulation, transportation, health and finance — defended failures, conceded the B.C. Liberal rebranding to BC United last year had not gone well, and criticized B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad and his candidates as if nothing else was happening.
But everything was happening.
Within the hour, Falcon would board a flight to Vancouver where a handful of people were in secret merger discussions with the B.C. Conservatives, triggered by Falcon just 48 hours earlier.
Staff were rushing him out of his office to a plane at Victoria’s Inner Harbour. His closest advisers, some of his longest-serving MLAs — none of them had any indication of what was about to transpire.
“Outside of my chief of staff, I could not talk to anyone,” Falcon said. “That’s just the nature of something like this that’s so highly sensitive.”
How did he proceed with press announcements and one-on-one interviews Tuesday with one foot pedal-to-the-metal in a BC United election campaign at full throttle, and the other slamming on the brakes?
“This is the toughest part of leadership,” Falcon said. “Because, yes, it absolutely will come across to those I’m speaking to, and even the public, perhaps as duplicitous.
“But I have no knowledge that any of this will come to a positive end. In fact I was, frankly, more of the view that it was unlikely to,” Falcon said.
“And so I still have to keep my game face on, and I have to continue moving forward with the knowledge that I’m going to be leading our group into a campaign, however challenging and difficult as that may be … and that’s what I did.”
Falcon said he empowered sister-in-law Caroline Elliott, the BC United candidate for West Vancouver-Capilano and former party vice-president, to reach out to Angelo Isidorou, the Conservative party’s executive director, to start discussions last Sunday.
The two met that night over beer at Browns Socialhouse in North Vancouver and quickly concluded there were grounds for formal talks.
On Tuesday, Elliott and BC United executive director Lindsay Coté met in a Vancouver boardroom with Isidorou and Conservative president Aisha Estey. All were sensitive to the fact that earlier merger talks in the spring had imploded.
“There’s a trust relationship, I think, between them [Caroline and Angelo] and that was important to me, that whoever reaches out has to be someone that John’s key staff will have trust in,” Falcon said.
The mood was described as resolute and serious, given the gravity of the talks, the impact on people’s lives, and the timing just eight weeks shy of the Oct. 19 election. Candid discussions followed about the MLAs and candidates United wanted retained and Conservative candidates to whom Rustad made promises.
Falcon, having landed in Vancouver, asked if it would be helpful if he stopped by.
“As the leader, I needed to reach out and have a direct conversation with the key people in John [Rustad]’s staff to just determine whether there was any point in getting together,” Falcon said.
If they could agree on the big picture of getting rid of the NDP, “then everything else is just a detail that has to be worked out.”
That common ground and a review of candidates triggered the last step: a face-to-face meeting of the leaders.
At 9 p.m. in the boardroom of Estey’s law firm, Kazlaw Injury & Trauma Lawyers, in Vancouver’s downtown financial district, a three-hour meeting commenced between Falcon and Rustad — adversaries since Falcon bounced Rustad, on his birthday, from caucus over his views on climate change. Rustad went on to rejuvenate the Conservative Party of B.C. and became its leader.
Estey, Isidorou and Elliott were also in the room.
Falcon said he started out by telling Rustad “I probably only agree with 75 per cent of the things you do and it’s probably mostly fiscal and economic issues” but that he still thought Rustad would be a better premier than David Eby, a sentiment he repeated when announcing the deal.
“This was just a real, genuine human-being to human-being sit-down to see if two people could park their differences and the history of name-calling and all the rest of it, and just sit down and be adults,” Falcon said. “And ultimately, we were able to do that.”
Rustad had long refused to cut candidates he recruited despite their anti-science or bigoted views. BC United researchers had compiled a book of bios on candidates with conspiracy theories and problematic views. The two pored over candidates in 93 ridings.
“The commitment I got from John, and it was genuine, was that he would work in good faith to make sure that he will assemble with my advice — now he can ignore my advice, he has that right — to select and present the best possible team of candidates … and that includes from our own MLA caucus,” Falcon said.
(As of Friday, a full official list of candidates had yet to be made public and an Angus Reid showed the NDP and Conservatives in a statistical tie after BC United’s withdrawal).
For that merger of centre-right candidates to be successful it’s critical that everyone is welcome, regardless of “what God they pray to, who they choose to love, or what their background is,” said Falcon.
“Everyone should feel welcome in a British Columbia that believes that a private-sector economy is the best way to generate growth and opportunity for our kids in the next generation.”
Just before midnight, an historic decision between two adversaries was sealed with a handshake.
Falcon would remain leader but suspend BC United’s campaign, release his candidates, and put his faith in Rustad’s promise that the Conservatives will draw from BC United’s pool of candidates based on an improved vetting process.
“I think my legacy has to be trying to do what is the right thing, ultimately, for our party and our province,” said Falcon. “And although it’s hard to accept for our party, I really believe that that was the right thing.”
The next morning, as the finer details were hammered out, rumours swirled and the news leaked. A news conference was scheduled for 2:40 p.m. at the Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre.
As BC United caucus members and candidates heard the news, Falcon frantically made calls.
“That was hard, because the story leaks and it’s out there, and then, you know, events overwhelm you, and so that’s not the way I wanted my colleagues to see this,” he said.
Internal polling, door-knocking and attendance at events — almost 700 attended a Beans-and-Jeans event at Delta South MLA Ian Paton’s farm last Sunday — contradicted flagging polling. But long-time supporters and donors of all stripes had increasingly approached Falcon, worried a vote-split would give the NDP a victory.
“There is a little bit of a myth, as if Kevin Falcon woke up one day and said, ‘well that’s it, I’ll make a phone call. I’m just going to do this on my own without consulting people,” Falcon said. “That’s just not how it works, obviously. This is something that has been going back and forth for months.” And there was all kinds of information privy only to the leader, including the possibility of more defections — several high-profile BC United MLAs had already left for the Conservatives — a withdrawal of endorsements and donations from the business community, and other pressures.
As media, candidates and supporters waited for the official announcement, the clock for the news conference ticked. And ticked. The event was delayed.
“The reason we’re late to the announcement is because I had just come from the [BC United] board meeting where the board endorsed the decision I made,” said Falcon.
“I didn’t need the board’s endorsement but I think it was very helpful that the board understand why I was making that decision and why it was in the best interest of the party.”
The news conference left many questions unanswered about donations and subsidies. Rustad didn’t directly answer a question about his view that carbon dioxide emissions do not contribute to climate change.
“We’re not changing our principles and the values that we stand for,” said Rustad.
Afterward, Falcon said, he received more calls and texts, gifts and cards than ever in his political history. A deputy minister applauded Falcon’s time as finance minister.
“It’s been absolutely overwhelming,” Falcon said. “Honestly, 98 per cent of the messages are so incredibly supportive, and they’re coming from just all over the place.”
“I’ve run for office, I’ve had these big wins, I’ve had all kinds of things happen, and I make the biggest loser play in my life,” he jokes, “and I’m getting all this congratulatory support.”
But there were lots of tough calls and conversations — like with Prince George-Valemount MLA Shirley Bond.
Bond, first elected as a B.C. Liberal in 2001, worked alongside Falcon for many years, served as deputy premier under Gordon Campbell, was minister of multiple ministries including education and health, and was B.C.’s first female attorney general while she was minister of justice.
But Rustad didn’t choose her to be the riding’s Conservative candidate. Falcon couldn’t believe it.
“So here I am trying to make phone calls to talk to my caucus members — and these aren’t easy phone calls, you know, especially someone who I love and respect like Shirley Bond,” said Falcon.
“I would have made a different decision if I was John, but that was his decision, and I had to, you know, share that kind of news.”
Bond announced Thursday she had withdrawn her candidacy, adding Falcon’s suspension of the campaign came as a complete surprise.
Falcon said he has apologized to caucus and staff, saying he would have loved to have had talked beforehand, and acknowledged he understood “the anger, the disappointment, sense of betrayal, whatever the emotion is, I totally understand.”
“But what they have to understand from me is that I have a different vista than they all do,” said Falcon. “I see and know way more things than they do.”
Falcon now looks back on his time in Opposition as fondly as his time in government.
“I can look at our time in Opposition and say we were one of the best damn Oppositions in history and I really mean that,” he said.
“I’ve never seen a government ever have to fold or withdraw so many bills, have to back off so many initiatives … whether it was decriminalization, or whether it was their proposed Land Act changes, or whether it was that ridiculous billion-dollar museum in Victoria.”
And that might have been it for the earth-shaking news for Falcon this week, but it wasn’t.
On Thursday, after some of the dust had settled, Falcon called his brother Danny, who has Stage 4 cancer.
Despite the gravity of that diagnosis and an unsuccessful surgery, Falcon had been living in a world of hope fed by the possibilities of chemotherapy, new medications and therapies.
“You think you wouldn’t be surprised, that you’re prepared, but I guess you’re not, because you’re always, you’re always hopeful, right?”
But then on Thursday he learned that Danny’s prognosis had worsened.
The devastation of hearing his brother’s time is limited met with Falcon’s realization his free time is now limitless.
“I’ve been given this incredible, beautiful gift of free time over the next few months,” said Falcon, choking back tears.
“I obviously didn’t know anything about this and the serious nature — other than he’s in the hospital right now — but what I can tell you is that, had I still been running to be the next premier of this province, I would have been spending now up until election day campaigning, it would have just been one of the busiest times of my life.”
Falcon said he’s now at peace — with all of it.
“Just imagine the gift I’ve been given that I now, fortuitously, have this opportunity to spend time with a family member that’s really sick,” he said. “That is a gift that I treasure above all else.”
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