Stockwell Day’s Secretive Role in BC’s Election

[Editor’s note: This story is a collaboration between the Investigative Journalism Foundation and The Tyee.]

Former federal parliamentarian Stockwell Day is involved in a group that ran a secretive campaign boosting the Conservative Party of British Columbia in the lead-up to the provincial election.

Day, the former leader of the Canadian Alliance party and a longtime cabinet minister in Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, is one of two registered directors for West Coast Proud, which spent an estimated $60,000 on Facebook and Instagram advertisements supporting the BC Conservatives.

The Investigative Journalism Foundation and The Tyee previously reported West Coast Proud was part of a national network of similar groups promoting right-wing candidates in federal and provincial elections.

Day is listed as one of its two directors in forms filed to Elections BC.

By email, Day confirmed he had accepted an invitation to join the group.

Day said he wanted to work against what he described as “the perhaps well intended but destructive policies of socialism.”

He didn’t respond to followup emails requesting an interview or to questions about his role with the group.

West Coast Proud purchased hundreds of advertisements on Instagram and Facebook supporting the BC Conservatives and criticizing the BC NDP in the weeks leading up to the election, according to information from the Meta Ad Library.

That library says the page spent between $46,000 and $98,000 on advertisements since late June. Meta estimates the page spent roughly $60,000.

Many of those advertisements blamed the BC NDP for the province’s housing crisis and attacked the party’s record on drug decriminalization and public safety. They also sometimes amplified the BC Conservatives’ talking points and praised the party’s leader, John Rustad.

Stewart Prest, a professor of political science at the University of British Columbia, said Day’s involvement in the page was a rare example of an established Conservative figure involved with groups like West Coast Proud, which lists no directors or staff on its website or social media pages.

“I would suggest his presence provides a kind of link between the official world of Conservatism and this shadowy online world of conservatism,” Prest said.

Day retired from politics in 2011, but Prest described him as “someone with eminence and notoriety in the Conservative world.”

Day previously served as a provincial cabinet minister in Alberta before relocating to B.C.’s Okanagan region, where he was elected as an MP in 2000. Corporate filings indicate Day still has an address in the Kelowna area.

Since leaving politics, Day has held a number of board positions including for Telus and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.

West Coast Proud and its sister pages have drawn scrutiny from civil advocacy groups and academics about their online advertising campaigns, which have spent hundreds of thousands in federal and provincial races since 2018, according to election filings.

Much of the money spent on those campaigns came from the Canada Strong and Free Network, a right-wing think tank based in Calgary. Another significant contributor was the Modern Miracle Network, which is connected to Alberta’s oil and gas industry.

“We have these organizations that we don’t know very much about that are involved in providing advertising online,” Prest said.

Andy Crooks, West Coast Proud’s other director and a prominent Alberta conservative activist, told the IJF in a previous statement that the group was based in British Columbia. Crooks also said that West Coast Proud followed all campaign finance laws, which prohibit third-party advertisers from buying ads with money they receive from businesses or other organizations.

But Crooks declined to elaborate on where West Coast Proud’s money came from.

Elections BC said it had received complaints about the group and was investigating, though it did not say what the alleged violation entailed.

The incumbent BC NDP ended up winning 47 seats in the election, the bare minimum it needed to form a majority government.

In an Oct. 21 email to supporters, West Coast Proud indicated it plans to continue fundraising, saying that “the possibility of another election hangs on the horizon.”

“Our work is far from over,” the email said.