Democratic Reform B.C. [ Leader: Tom Morino ]
By Duncan Speight | April 5, 2005

B.C.'s newest political party, formed earlier this year, says it plans to field candidates in a majority of ridings in the May 17 election and hopes to win enough seats to hold the balance of power.

Democratic Reform B.C. is a coalition of smaller parties that wants to establish itself as the moderate alternative to the B.C. Liberals and the NDP.

Former Liberal MLA Elayne Brenzinger, the new party's lone elected representative, says the new party is fiscally responsible and socially progressive.

Brenzinger who was elected as a Liberal MLA in 2001 in the riding of Surrey-Whalley, resigned from the Liberal caucus in March 2004 after feuding with Premier Gordon Campbell.

Leader Tom Morino is the former head of the B.C. Democratic Coalition, and was previously a member of the Progressive Democratic Alliance of B.C.

Morino, a Victoria-area lawyer, ran unsuccessfully as a B.C. Liberal candidate in 1986 and 1991.

He says the the new party was brought together because "there's a great deal of frustration felt by many British Columbians" who vote against a government and vote out of fear.