In the end, it was a handshake deal at midnight in the boardroom of a downtown Vancouver law firm that brought together the BC United and Conservative parties.

Kevin Falcon and John Rustad, together in a room, talking at length — at some points even jovially — for the first time in more than two years.

How they got there happened quickly, and involved only six people. In the end, some of Falcon’s closest advisors and longest-serving MLAs had no idea what he’d done until the last moment. Many watched Wednesday’s televised press conference with the rest of the public to learn what was going on.

It started Sunday, when Caroline Elliott, the United candidate for West Vancouver-Capilano, former party vice president and Falcon’s sister-in-law, reached out by text to Angelo Isidorou, the Conservative party’s executive director. Would he be willing to meet and talk about where things are at, she asked.

Falcon had empowered Elliott to start face-to-face discussions. He wanted to hear directly from the Conservatives, amidst a swirl of political rumours, pressured meetings from business leaders and declining party donations.

Labour Day was looming — the unofficial start of the election campaign, when things would kick into high gear. If anything was going to happen, it had to happen now.

Elliott and Isidorou sat down at Browns Socialhouse in North Vancouver’s Lonsdale area for an informal chat Sunday evening — two trusted interlocutors from either side feeling out, over a Guinness, whether there was enough common ground for a formal meeting.

They quickly determined there was.

Tuesday, at 2 p.m., Elliott and United executive director Lindsay Coté gathered in a boardroom in Vancouver with Isidorou and Conservative president Aisha Estey.

The Conservative staffers took the meeting with low expectations. Some of the same people had tried unsuccessfully to broker a deal in May. The failure to do so, had led to three BC United MLAs defecting to the Conservatives.

Elliott set the tone of the meeting off the top: Falcon has spent his life fighting the BC NDP, and he’s very, very serious about getting a deal to avoid handing the NDP another term in power and doing irreparable damage to the province, she said.

It was a serious........

© BIV