The next provincial election is set for May 2013, but the governing B.C. Liberals are already releasing radio attack ads against former Richmond East MP and now B.C. Conservative party leader John Cummins.
Two advertisements being broadcast in various regional markets over the next several weeks attempt to undermine Cummins' small-c conservative credentials.
In one ad, a man says that Cummins "sure likes everyone thinking he's a real conservative. ... What a joke. I mean he voted for the B.C. NDP in the last election."
The ads also say that former Conservative member of Parliament Cummins is collecting a $100,000 annual federal pension while opposing the recent increase in the provincial minimum wage.
Cummins called the ad campaign a "desperation tactic" and quipped: "I'm flattered. [NDP leader] Adrian Dix should be so lucky."
Cummins said the ads are proof that the B.C. Liberals are worried about their polling numbers.
"They are terrified that we have traction and that we're on the way up and they are on the way down."
Cummins said he voted NDP in the 2009 election because he was furious with the B.C. Liberals' sale of BC Rail and their routing of the South Fraser Perimeter Road in Delta. (He was MP for Delta-Richmond East.)
Mary Polak, Langley MLA and B.C. Liberal cabinet minister, said her party decided to release the ads far in advance of the next election because it will take time for voters to learn about Cummins' previous votes and positions.
"It takes time to build that knowledge," she said. "He should have to defend his actions."
Polak said that Cummins shouldn't be able to "ride on the coattails of the federal Conservative party."
She added: "When you look at the fact that he voted for the NDP and didn't even vote for the B.C. Conservative candidate in his riding, you see that he doesn't really have the conservative principles he claims to have."
Dix called the ads a "cynical approach," adding that Cummins "should not pay the price of being smeared for entering the provincial political arena."
