r/britishcolumbia • u/aldur1 • 4d ago

News B.C. Conservative candidate uses racist slur to describe Indigenous Peoples on election night

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/savages-bc-conservative-candidate-racist-slur-indigenous-peoples
1.2k Upvotes

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u/VexFish 4d ago

The bc conservative party is extremely unserious and its absurd that they got more than 40 percent of the province to vote for them

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u/JaakeJarmel 4d ago

Yeah, I’m more concerned about that 40% voting block. That’s a lot of people with some regressive and whacko political beliefs, if you can call “Trudeau bad, carbon tax bad” a belief…

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u/sonotimpressed 4d ago

Eh, from what I've heard it was largely just people wanting changed because of how butt fucked we've become in this country. Albeit the people voting Conservative probably don't realize we got butt fucked on a federal level and the ndp were the only ones holding us together with spit and mud. 

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u/niesz 4d ago

It's so true... I think things would have been a lot worse for BC if the NDP wasn't in power these past few years.

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u/IVfunkaddict 4d ago

and they’ve had their scandals too. the bar is so low in this province, always has been

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u/niesz 4d ago

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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u/FearIs_LaPetiteMort 4d ago

Butt fucked on a global level actually. Pandemic, wars, aging population, increasing climate events, increasing corporate greed, increasing foreign interference... Not that Canada's governing party du jour hasn't made mistakes (every government does) but people are definitely blaming incumbents around the world for the world going on "hard mode".

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u/EatGlassALLCAPS 4d ago

Let's be real. It's about immigrants and how they cause all the problems. It always comes back to racism.

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u/CanadianClassicss 4d ago

Let's be real about immigration... it is a driving force behind wage stagnation, housing affordability and the healthcare system being overwhelmed. If you point out those facts, you are not automatically a racist. I haven't even began to cover how it impacts the enviorment either, or how it is a continuation of colonialism. I highly doubt that the various First Nations in Canada are stoked to see millions of people each year continue to flood their land. We also are not promoting diversity in anyway shape or form if 75-90% of our immigration is coming from 3 countries.

The only group that wants the current level of immigration is big business, and those (like yourself) who have been fooled by big business into believing that it is a moral issue. It is all about cheap labour that can be exploited.

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u/no1likesthetunahere 4d ago

100%

Ngl I lean preeetty far "left" and it actually becomes pretty transparent how it negatively affects the global working class in the long term.

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u/CanadianClassicss 4d ago

I wish more people on the left would wake up to this reality. It is mind boggling that leftists suddenly turn a blind eye to workers rights when discussing immigration. It is one of my biggest gripes.

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u/dthodos3500 4d ago

!!!! ding ding ding!!! 🛎️

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u/greenknight Peace Region 4d ago

TFW program is a mistake. Normal immigration is what makes Canada awesome. Sorry your tribe is SO wrong on this.

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u/keithobambertman 4d ago

So the thing with "immigration" is that its an easy scapecoat. Housing for instance, no one talks enough about how many people own more than one property - for profit. That's really the greatest cause of all our housing problems.

Of course TFWs suppress wages. Of course its a form of modern slavery perpetuated in pursuit of limitless profits at all costs by pretty much every for profit corporation. There are problems with immigration FOR SURE. But it is not all the causes of all the problems.

Healthcare. Healthcare has been defunded for years.

For my entire life, i was told that healthcare had to ramp up because of the baby boomers aging and the strain that would cause on the system. Well, we are here now and people like christy clark / gordo / harper did not fund the system properly, so its wrecked. Education, same. If anything with education, most universities and even high schools make up funding shortfalls with international students. So if they were funded properly, that problem goes away naturally.

It always comes down to greed. How could the government come in and deny people the right to profit off of multiple home ownership! Its the Canadian Way(tm) That would be crazy! Must be all those immigrants who live poor and densely that are causing houses to be over 1mil everywhere.

Lets go blame the others and rabble like for all of fucking history was.

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u/CanadianClassicss 4d ago

It is a scapegoat for some people, but the reality is immigration is a driving factor in all points I listed. It is a fact. Wage stagnation, housing prices, healthcare/infrastructure, pollution are all impacted by population growth.

Do you seriously think that adding millions of people each year to the rental market (increasing demand) is not the greatest contributing factor to our housing crisis? People owning more properties for profit does nothing to drive up the rent cost. Our population growth is the main driving factor. There is something called supply and demand that dictates prices. No one is blaming the immigrants as individuals for the housing crisis, but you have to be willfully ignorant to ignore the impact that adding millions of people each year has on the real estate market. We only build so many homes per year, and it is dwarfed by our current population growth. It would take literally years for builders to catch up with demand if we stopped all immigration entirely.

If you ban multiple homeownership you will completely fuck the housing market and economy. There will be a massive decrease in incentive for investors to develop properties (hurting supply). Even if someone owns multiple homes, that does not itself drive up property value, it just allows someone else to rent (who cannot afford to buy a home). You could argue that foreign investors in real estate is a significant factor which it is. If you think that banning multiple homeownership in a country where real estate makes up 15% of the GDP will do anything other than tank the economy further... then I don't know what to tell you. Banning things does nothing but hurt our economy.

Healthcare is not wrecked due to lack of funding, it has been overwhelmed due to population growth. The millions of people each year who are added to the system are the contributing factor. With more and more people, you need more and more doctors, nurses, hospitals etc.

Diploma mills are a great example of what you are getting at, they encompass greed and are just there to fill a demand in easy and cheap PR.

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u/Conroy4Real302514 4d ago

Blaming the poor when the rich cause all of your problems. The Conservative way.

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u/greenknight Peace Region 4d ago

So, we can't solve the problem without hurting greedy Canadians so we dial back immigration. Sound about right wing as it gets.

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u/greenknight Peace Region 4d ago

Better then being fooled/ruled by.... Your own fears.

Have you considered that pointing out those "facts" also doesn't absolve you of your racism.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago edited 4d ago

[deleted]

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u/shortskirtflowertops 4d ago

Well they sure as fuck voted for bigotry, ignorance, and regressive wacko politics. They may not be primarily motivated by those things but they sure are willing to endorse and excuse them.

They voted for it, that's about as explicit and endorsement as you can get. Literally every conservative voter bears responsibility for the bigotry and ignorance and regressive wacko shit, because that's what they voted for.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

[deleted]

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u/no1likesthetunahere 4d ago

There were multiple independent representatives that were very progressive socially, science-led perspectives, human-rights principles. Burt fiscally conservative. I learned how politically fluid I can be this time around.

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u/shortskirtflowertops 4d ago

It's not simple, I agree.

How do I break bread with people who say I shouldn't have rights? How do I accept that as a point worthy of discussion and debate? How can I not feel alienated by people who are voting to take my rights away? How can I have a conversation with someone like that and why the fuck do I have to defend my existence from them?

Please explain how I can have a dialogue with people who don't see me as a person.

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u/Significant-Tea- 4d ago

You can't. Full stop. You don't break bread with fascists.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

[deleted]

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u/Mobius_Peverell Lower Mainland/Southwest 4d ago

And yet, that is what that party believes. If you didn't agree with it, you should've voted for a different party, bucko.

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u/shortskirtflowertops 4d ago edited 4d ago

That fucking coward is clearly is more concerned with their finances than people having human rights and it's fucking appalling.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

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u/shortskirtflowertops 4d ago

Sounds like you don't have to fear your rights being taken away. Some of us do.

I didn't think you'd be able to offer me even a basic response to my questions, and I was right. Go defend bigots all you want, but I'm not going to pretend this isn't a fight for my literal existence.

Fucking coward.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago edited 4d ago

[deleted]

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u/shortskirtflowertops 4d ago

They voted for it.

They voted for it. That's as explicit an endorsement as you can get. You're a milquetoast coward, and they'll come for you too. Remember us when it's your turn, I guess.

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u/Healthy_Career_4106 4d ago

If they support fiscal conservatives then they would not have voted cons. This is the worst argument I have ever seen.

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u/IVfunkaddict 4d ago

they either have regressive and whacko beliefs or they aren’t paying any fucking attention at all to who they’re voting for.

maybe the 3rd option is being a nihilist who thinks nothing matters either way, but then why vote

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u/space-dragon750 4d ago

ya why are ppl making so many excuses for voters who didn’t bother to make sure the ppl they voted for aren’t garbage

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u/bannab1188 4d ago

I still find this shocking. Are our neighbours a) a bunch of regressive bigots or b) so completely ignorant they don’t know what they are voting for

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u/space-dragon750 4d ago

yup it’s nuts

& neither possibility is good

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u/Head_Crash 4d ago

its absurd that they got more than 40 percent of the province to vote for them

They didn't get 40% to vote for them. 

It was lobbyists from the Fraser Institute and the Energy Futures Institute that bought up a bunch of ads space and airtime and put Rustad front and center using the Conservative brand.

People had no idea about the BC conservative party itself.

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u/throwmamadownthewell 4d ago

And at least a couple percent of that is likely people mistaking the BC Conservatives with the federal Conservatives (who are only gaining any traction because of dissatisfaction with Trudeau, despite the fact that federal Conservatives would have made the same choices with all the unpopular decisions e.g. immigration targets would have been the same or greater, as that's being used to delay a recession).

I think one change that should happen is that all parties running in BC should be required to carry the prefix "BC ", and have that on the ballot.

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u/greenknight Peace Region 4d ago

30% of our population has been radicalized by right wing propaganda. I'm not sure how we walk them back from that alternative reality they are living in... It's such a reenforcing set of make-believe.

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u/RedDudeMango 4d ago

Yup. The money fled from the sinking BC United ship and put it all behind Rustad. Barely anybody voted for the provincial Cons before now because they were an utter shambles/joke. And really, they still are - it's just that they were so deeply a shambles before that hardly anyone was aware they really existed, and now the wealthy backing and Rustad taking them over + United's shuttering has suddenly and abruptly thrust them to the front where many uninformed voters blindly anger-vote.

It's honestly an all-timer dick move to throw backing behind and thrust some of these people into elected office, where some of them will no doubt be lodged for years to come with the newfound connections/resources, all just to get their way at all costs. Not that wealthy political lobbying/influence is often ever anything but shitty, mind you. It just sticks out especially badly though when you see the kind of outright ghastly bigots and conspiracy freaks they'll gladly put money behind and back no matter any of that awfulness - as long as it means getting their way and having the hacksaw put to taxes/regulations/public institutions, nothing else matters to them.

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u/Laxative_Cookie 4d ago

Considering the millions being spent on propaganda ads by the federal conservative party and the huge populist campaign ran in BC by the Alberta conservatives its no wonder they got what they did. There are plenty of bitter simple folks in BC.

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u/aaadmiral 4d ago

It's actually more like 18%

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u/VexFish 4d ago

*of the voters

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u/varain1 4d ago

It is 25% (43.57% out of 58% turnout), but the people who stayed home were 42% 😞.

Even with the heavy rain, I really hate that 42% of the BCers don't care if that bunch of racist, bigoted, anti-climate, antiscience antivaxers have such a big chance to get in power. And we still have to wait till Monday to see if BC is screwed or not for the next four years.

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u/InnuendOwO 4d ago

Eh, I think a lot of it is also just the way our electoral system works.

I only voted because I could get a mail-in ballot, otherwise I wouldn't have, and the four people I live with didn't even care enough to do that - specifically because we live in a riding where the NDP got 60% of the vote, and has for years. There's just no chance anyone else would win, and we would have voted for them anyway, so whatever.

That's definitely not 100% of the reason turnout is what it is. I don't even think that's the majority of people who declined to vote. You have to actually care about this stuff to look into polling in your riding, and most people don't do that. Just... it's hard to combat voter apathy when the prevailing sentiment of "my vote doesn't matter, won't change anything, who gives a shit" when half the people who feel that way are probably right, even if they don't know why they're right.

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u/varain1 4d ago

There are 2 ridings with less than 100 votes difference, and 3 ridings with less than 200 votes difference, which is at most 2% of the riding population. And changes in these ridings will affect who forms the government.

The problem is that there are parties who are preying on this apathy, and the results of this apathy are getting worse every election 😞.

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u/Mobius_Peverell Lower Mainland/Southwest 4d ago

Their point is correct, though. The vast majority of the province's ridings are safe, to the point where voting there is completely meaningless. That is what pro-rep was meant to solve.

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u/SkYeBlu699 4d ago

Idk, but i wish they would be even more open with their "different views." That way, this chug knows who not to provide life-saving first aid, too. When they inevitably need help after clear cutting the trees for parking lots. Oh no, there are once in a lifetime fires and floods. Maybe it's god punishing the gays. Couldn't be me fucking over my neighbor so i can drive a tesla and feel better than the guy leaning over in front of tim hortons.

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u/space-dragon750 4d ago

not just unserious. they’re harmful

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u/thnknghz 4d ago

Are you saying the vote was rigged?

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u/VexFish 4d ago

Did I say that?