The 1933 election brought into power Duff Pattullo and introduced into the legislature the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), a new social-democratic and democratic socialist opposition party.

It expanded the highway system, extended the Pacific Great Eastern Railway, and negotiated the Alcan Agreement, which facilitated construction of the Kenny Dam.

The Liberal Party executive voted to terminate the coalition and Johnson dropped his Conservative ministers in January 1952,[27] resulting in a short-lived minority government which soon collapsed.

In order to prevent the CCF from winning in a three-party competition, the government introduced instant-runoff voting, with the expectation that Conservative voters would list the Liberals as their second choice and vice versa.

Although Social Credit won a majority of seats in the legislature, their finance minister Einar Gunderson was defeated in Oak Bay by Philip Archibald Gibbs of the Liberals.

Gordon Gibson Sr, a millionaire timber baron, nicknamed the "Bull of the Woods",[28] was elected for Lillooet as a Liberal.

[citation needed] In frustration, Gibson resigned his seat and forced a by-election, hoping to make the Sommers scandal the issue.

MLAs Garde Gardom, Pat McGeer and Allan Williams left the Liberals for Social Credit along with Hugh Curtis of the suddenly rejuvenated Tories.

[23] Since the mid-1970s, most federal Liberals in BC had chosen to support the British Columbia Social Credit Party at the provincial level.

By the time of the 1991 election, Wilson lobbied to be included in the televised Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) debate between Vander Zalm's successor, Premier Rita Johnston and BC NDP leader Michael Harcourt.

Wilson's policies did not coincide with many other Liberals both in the legislature and in the party who wanted to fill the vacuum left by the collapse of Social Credit.

They had a difficult time to build a disciplined organization that could mount an effective opposition against the New Democratic Party provincial government.

[citation needed] In 1993, Wilson's leadership was further damaged by revelations of his affair with fellow Liberal MLA Judi Tyabji.

The revised name and logo was an attempt to distinguish itself more clearly in the minds of voters from the federal Liberal Party of Canada.

The Liberals won two former Socred seats in by-elections held in the Fraser Valley region, solidifying their claim to be the clear alternative to the existing BC NDP government.

The Liberal party also filled the vacuum created on the centre-right of the BC political spectrum by Social Credit's collapse.

Campbell jettisoned some of the less popular policy planks in his 1996 platform, most notably a promise to sell BC Rail, as the prospect of the sale's consequences had alienated supporters in the Northern Interior ridings.

Campbell also initiated the privatization of BC Rail, which the Liberals had promised not to sell in order to win northern ridings which had rejected the party in 1996 but reversed this promise after election, with criminal investigations connected with the bidding process resulting in the 2003 British Columbia Legislature raids and the ensuing and still-pending court case.

In the course of the cuts, hospitals, courthouses and extended care facilities around the province were shut down, particularly in smaller communities, and enforcement staff such as the BC Conservation Service were reduced to marginal levels.

In 2003, a drug investigation known as Operation Everwhichway led to raids on government offices in the British Columbia Parliament Buildings in relation to suspect dealings concerning the sale of BC Rail to CN in a scandal which became known as "Railgate" and the trial of four former ministerial aides for influence peddling, breach of trust and accepting bribes.

[30] On November 3, 2010, facing an imminent caucus revolt over his management style and the political backlash against the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) and the controversial end to the BC Rail corruption trial and with his approval rating as low as 9% in polls, Gordon Campbell announced his resignation.

Clark became premier during the aftermath of the 2008–09 recession and continued to hold the line on government spending, introducing two deficit budgets before a balanced one for the 2013–14 fiscal year, which included a tax hike on high-income British Columbians.

While continuing with BC's first-in-North-America carbon tax, she promised to freeze the rate during the 2013 election and her LNG development aspirations seemed to contradict greenhouse gas emissions targets set by the Campbell government in 2007.

She also announced in 2012 that any future pipeline that crosses BC would have to meet five conditions that included environmental requirements and Indigenous consultation.

Controversially, she indicated that one of her five conditions would be that BC receives its "fair share" of any revenues that accrue from increased pipeline and tanker traffic.

[29] During the 2013 election, Clark entered the campaign low in public opinion polls and trailing her main rival, Adrian Dix of the NDP, by as much as 20 points.

[39] During the 2020 general election, Wilkinson was criticized by party members, including the membership chair, for his delay in removing Laurie Throness, a candidate and former MLA who had made anti-LGBTQ statements.

After polling at 33 percent in the immediate aftermath of the name change, BC United suffered a further MLA defection as BC United MLA Bruce Banman crossed the floor to the Conservatives, as the party dropped to 19 percent in the polls, 6 points behind the Conservatives by that September.

In February 2025, former BC United MLA Karin Kirkpatrick called for him to resign saying that his continued presence was preventing the party from rebuilding and raising funds to pay its debts.

As of 2024, these positions are held by Harman Khosa, James Lehmann, Olivia Wankling, Mark Dhillon, and Teddy O'Donnell, respectively.