For personal reasons, Keith MacIntyre stepped down from the role of Party Leader in 2022, and long-time Party member and many-times Libertarian candidate Alex Joehl stepped into the role of Interim Leader.
Alex describes himself as a libertarian to a fault, principled more than pragmatic. After almost two decades as a member of the Party he’s seen the BCLP grow, evolve, and transform from a social club into the entity it is now. And along the way, he’s served alongside all types of libertarians, including minarchists, anarchists, and pragmatics, and campaigned adjacent to progressives, socialists, communists, environmentalists, conservatives, and classic liberals. It’s through these experiences that he knows the direction our province should be heading.
As a father, he is insistent that we need to leave a mark on the landscape greater than our predecessors. What we leave behind for our children needs to be more fertile for opportunity than the world we were brought up in. Conservatives are just Progressives driving the speed limit, heading in the same direction, so Libertarians are here to say ‘Pump the brakes,’ we need to make some serious changes!
Alex is a trained journalist and worked just under a decade in the media industry. It’s during his college years he realized he was a classic liberal – someone who believes that private citizens know better how to live their lives than a government. Journalism used to be about questioning authority and asking hard questions…but unfortunately the corporate press has become an arm of the state and can no longer be trusted to stand up for the vulnerable in our society.
Alex now works as a department manager for a major grocery store and sees firsthand the challenges British Columbians have in paying for necessities. Governments’ monetary and fiscal policies have led to the price inflation we’ve seen, forcing the most-marginalized residents of our province to make difficult decisions: heat or eat. In a nation and province as rich as the one we live in the state should not be forcing its residents to make choices like that. Out-of-control government spending costs productive British Columbians and also hurts those on fixed incomes.
He lives in Langley, just a quick jaunt from the US border, downtown Vancouver, a ferry terminal, and the less inhabited corners of the Fraser Valley. But he also realizes that the strength of our BCLP is our more rural roots in the Okanagan, Interior, and Northern towns. We need to spread our message of liberty to all corners of our spectacular province.
No matter why you came to this party, Alex wants to welcome you with open arms. Are you worried about the poor standard of healthcare being provided by our state-run monopoly? Are you concerned about the service by the state-run auto insurance provider ICBC? Do you have questions about frivolous government spending? Are you angry about the lingering medical apartheid during – and after – the SARS-CoV2 pandemic?
This is the place for you.