As we write this editorial, election recounts that will determine the next four years of our province are nearing completion. There’s no question, the stakes are high.
But we are appalled by the online conspiracy theories alleging this carefully legislated, non-partisan process is an attempt by the NDP to steal the election.
A key facet of the current populist mentality is that it seeks to undermine our institutions for the short-term satisfaction of finding something to blame. But the damage to those institutions lasts, and we are at a critical inflection point in the health of our democracies, which are more fragile than we like to admit. Attacking Elections BC is an attack on the foundations of the house we all live in.
What this ugly display reveals is the crisis in modern conservatism. The right wing has become addicted to conspiracy theories: Vaccines are a means to population control. Mass shootings are hoaxes. The UN is going to make us eat bugs. Two plus two equals five. Fringe ideas have always been with us but – importantly – always on the fringe. Now they are finding willing carriers not just within mainstream parties, but in those seeking office.
In the not-so-distant past, conservatism meant favouring less government spending and lower taxation, deregulation of red tape, minimal intrusion in the free market, and law and order. These are values that have led right-of-centre parties to many decades of governance in Canada and B.C.
It’s time to put paranoid fantasies back on the fringe. Regardless of whether a party is on the right or the left, we deserve to be governed by adults.
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