Talk:BC United

Requested move 13 April 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) – MaterialWorks 21:11, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

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British Columbia United → BC United – The party officially changed its name today. The official name registered with Elections BC is "BC United".[1] The article should be moved to reflect this change.-- Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 00:48, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Well, I thought we should go with the official name but, in fairness for the previous name (British Columbia Liberal Party), we used the full "British Columbia" despite the official name (and one used on ballots) being "BC Liberal Party". Also for the "BC NDP", we use the longer British Columbia New Democratic Party despite "BC NDP" being the official and ballot name. So maybe we should stick with "British Columbia United" or change it to the longer "British Columbia United Party". I don't have a strong opinion either way.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 01:26, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

The political party is titled “BC United”, not “British Columbia United Party”. “BC United” is fine, or “BC United (political party)” if a need for disambiguation arises. Although, being honest, we should consider creating a separate article on BC United and leaving the article intact for the now-historical BC Liberal party.)— Autospark (talk) 08:50, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

• Note - There is some discussion of this in the discussion below.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 17:19, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

I am tentatively leaning towards BC United as the page name. That's how they're registered and how they're branding themselves, so it makes sense to follow suit rather than 'unpack' their name for them. Yes, we do that for British Columbia New Democratic Party (registered as "BC NDP"), but the footnote says it's because the party and other sources regularly use the unabbreviated form of the name (and also probably for consistency with other NDP branches). But if nobody uses the long form, then I don't think we should be pioneering it. Of course, it's still early days, so who knows how their branding will evolve, which is why I'm only tentatively supporting it. It might be better to just wait. — Kawnhr (talk) 23:46, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Split

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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@Autospark: please tell us, why you think so Braganza (talk) 18:24, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

I feel that it is best that we should underline the (former) party's long and significant history as the British Columbia Liberal Party, which has governed British Columbia for a significant part of the province's existence, as well as the party itself being a section of the Liberal Party of Canada for most of the 20th century, and treat this 'rebranded' party as if it's a new, separate entity.--Autospark (talk) 21:09, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

The split with the federal Liberals happened in 1987. For 35 years, it operated as the "BC Liberals" without any connection to the Liberal Party of Canada. Even before that it was complex/messy, as there were coalitions and electoral cooperation agreements with local conservatives from time to time as those parties cooperated to defeat CCF/NDP and Socreds. But all of this is distant history, when the party changed its name a week ago, the name and logo is all that changed. It was a facelift. The party's leader, MLAs and policies remain the same. The party is the same entity it was before. In these circumstances, it would be odd to view these parties as separate entities. We have one article for the CCF/NDP, why should we have two here?--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 23:02, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

To insert myself into this conversation briefly, I understand the desire to want to preserve the history of what used to be called the BC Liberals, but that can easily be accomplished with the simple acknowledgement on the current article as it stands, since the history of the party is already written. Plus, precedent is in favour of the opposite. Name changes for political parties have usually not garnered the need for new articles, while splits and mergers have. I think that since the party has seen no major rift as of yet, that we keep the same article, and if there is a split or merger of some sort, then we can create a new article. EnigmaticSigma (talk) 12:28, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

In addition to what Darryl Kerrigan said above, there just isn't anything to split at this time, or even really the immediate future. Maybe in 20 or 30 years, they'll have a distinct identity and enough history to warrant it. — Kawnhr (talk) 04:44, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

There could be an argument for having three articles: one on BCLP until 1987, one on BCLP from 1987 to 2023 and one for BC United since 2023. Surely, as there has been a change of name, I would at least split the article and have a new one for BC United. --Checco (talk) 05:18, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Agree; whether it is into three or just two articles, there should be a split. In any case, this rename is the party firmly jettisoning the last vestiges of its history as a former affiliate/section of the LPC. (Incidentally, the old BC Liberals website used to describe the party has being "since 2001", indicating there was some intent that it was considered a 'new' party separate from the federal Liberals.)-- Autospark (talk) 15:00, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Do you want to provide a link to that archived version of the website, or another WP:RS for the 2001 claim? There appears to have been one article about the BC Liberals since the founding of the project. Are you now suggesting four are needed? One from circa 1867-1987, a second from 1987-2001, a third from 2001-2023 and a fourth from 2023-present? Do I have that right? So the party continued as the same entity, with the same leaders, policies between these years aside from the regular change that would be expected within a party (and in the first three "transitions" continued with the same name) but for some reason we should consider the party as four different parties not one? Someone is going to have to do a better job explaining this. It would be a pretty radical change flying in the face of long standing consensus. Sure, consensus can change, but there would have to be compelling reasons for it to change.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 20:23, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Agree with Kawnhr and Darryl here... all sources say BC United and BC Liberals are the exact same party. This is (again) not like when the BC Liberals came into existence and the Socreds stayed around as a continuing (albeit depleted) party.

Without sourcing to say BC United is a brand-new party, this issue is moot. —Joeyconnick (talk) 22:57, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm not and never suggested four articles; my preference would be for two, one article for the BC Liberal Party and one for the BC United party. If other editors would prefer a scenario where there was a third article for the BC Liberal Party up until 1987 and a separate one for 1987-2023, then so be it. As for the archived version of the website, there are examples here and here where the party describes itself as "first elected to govern British Columbia in 2001", seemingly regarding the BC Liberal party that governed the province in the first half of the 20th century a different entity. However I would grant you that is possibly open to interpretative and therefore inconclusive.-- Autospark (talk) 13:29, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Not to repeat myself, but consider the difference between the BC Liberals becoming BC United and the Reform Party becoming the Canadian Alliance.

The Alliance was technically, legally, the same party as the Reform Party (the Reform Party did not apply for dissolution and have the new Canadian Alliance apply for recognition; the Reform Party simply sent an application to Elections Canada to change its name and logo to that of the Alliance). However:

• the Canadian Alliance was, at least ostensibly, a merger between the Reform Party and outside Tory elements;
• "Unite the Right" had been a subject of active discussion for years — not just abstractly, but holding conferences and conventions to discuss it, gauge interest, etc.
• the merger had notable opposition within the party, including two sitting MPs;
• the establishment of the Alliance was inaugurated with a fresh leadership election — Manning had every intention of leading the new party but still had to be formally elected to the leadership, rather than simply inheriting it based on his leadership of Reform.

None of this applies to BCU. It was not pitched as a merger or an ideological shift, but a simple rebranding exercise because some of its members don't like the Liberal moniker. Renaming the party had been floated over the years, but had never been a major discussion until Falcon's leadership, and then it was over-and-done with in the span of a few months. The renaming effort did not seem to spawn a movement to counter it (if it did, it was pretty minor — certainly no MLAs were leading the charge). Finally, BCU did not hold a new leadership election, Falcon simply continued as leader.

So it's hard to see BCU as a different entity. It's the final shift away from their historical link to the federal Liberal Party, sure, but that's a process that has been slowly unfolding over three decades, with several moments one could use as a divider. So it seems strange, to me, to draw a firm line between them when recent BCL history is obviously relevant to BCU. And there isn't any other way to keep that history on one page without obviously flouting consensus (ie: if we split their history page at the 1987 disaffiliation, what does that mean for other provincial parties?). — Kawnhr (talk) 23:36, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

@Autospark, thanks for that clarification and for the citations. It doesn't seem that there is anything like a consensus developing to open up the "transitions" of 1987 or 2001 as points on which to split the article in to different articles about different BC Liberal parties. The 1987 disassociation from the federal Liberals, does not appear to have corresponded with significant changes in policy or leadership of the provincial party, or any other significant change. The 2014 wording from the website, appears to attempt to rebrand the party to some extent and focus on the last decade, in line with the slogan at the time "Today's BC Liberals". It does not seem to be a disowning of the past entity, an attempt to split from the old, or to found a new party. And it doesn't seem that anyone is arguing that 2001 should be a splitting point. Since you are not advocating for three or four articles, we seem to be back to talking about just whether we split the article into an article for the BC Liberals (circa 1903 to 2023) and BC United (2023-). I think editors positions on that are stated clearly above, but that seems to be where any further discussion is to be had (not on events of 1987 or 2001).--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 19:40, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

The article should be split in two, if not in three. To start, we should have an article on the BC Liberal Party and one on BC United. In Wikipedia there are several examples of parties, which were re-incorporated, having separate articles—just think of France's Gaullist parties, notably Union for a Popular Movement and The Republicans (France), or Italy's Democratic Party of the Left and Democrats of the Left. Readers benefit from distinct articles. --Checco (talk) 20:21, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Neither of these examples are comparable. In the French example, the party dissolved and a new party was formed. In the Italian example, several parties/factions merged into a new party. This is not what happened with the BC Liberal to BC United name change. It is the same party before and after, just with a different name. It is also relevant to note that the names "BC Liberal Party", "BCL", "BCLP", "British Columbia Liberal Party", and "Formerly known as: British Columbia Liberal Party" are all still registered by Elections BC as other names of BC United.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 22:23, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

@Darryl Kerrigan: Thank you for telling us the way the party came about. I was for splitting until I saw your comment :) ValenciaThunderbolt (talk) 13:44, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

i personally weak support a split since its an historic rebranding

(and for technical reasons, the article just gets too long imo) Braganza (talk) 07:18, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Colour

isn't BCU more teal than pink [2], at the bottom there is even their logo in white on tealish ground Braganza (talk) 05:37, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

@Earl Andrew, Hholdenday, and PLATEL: @User:Briguychau Braganza (talk) 08:57, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

I have not dealt with this political party, but I think pink suits it better for two reasons

1) historical continuity from the BC Liberal Party, which used a red color close to current

2) The turquoise color is slightly similar to the color of the BC Conservative Party, which can be confusing. PLATEL (talk) 09:04, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

well, i would rather change the CPBC color, it was dark blue since 1991 when they stopped calling themselves PC. Also ÖVP still uses black to some extend but we switched to cyan

• 
  2010s
• 
  current

Braganza (talk) 09:20, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

I do not understand the colors of the Canadian parties at all, they are all kind of faded. Apparently this has been on Wikipedia for a long time. PLATEL (talk) 10:10, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

It's a PC relict I think Braganza (talk) 10:15, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

The main party colour is teal; the pink appears to be an accent colour.-- Autospark (talk) 10:20, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Hello, if you have an opinion on the colour, I would say to bring it up here. It seems to be the majority opinion so far is to go with pink, as it's closer to the red they were when they were the Liberals. Also, teal is too close to Green (used by the Greens) and blue (used by the Conservatives).-- Earl Andrew - talk 13:20, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

pink isnt that different from Orange either (and the blue problem can be fixed) Braganza (talk) 17:35, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Template talk:Canadian party colour#RfC: British Columbia United Braganza (talk) 21:44, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Name: BC United, BC United Party, United BC Party...

Further to the closed move discussion above, and Kawnhr's comment there about "how their branding will evolve", it is worth noting that BC United appears to have registered BC United Party and United BC Party as other names with Elections BC. I am not eager to change the name at this time, but this might be one thing to consider if we look at this again in the future, when more reporting has occurred and the branding has developed through elections etc.-- Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 23:53, 1 May 2023 (UTC)