BURST
The new B.C. Conservative leader, Kerry-Lynne Findlay, is building her own team within the party, but what she will want most is to get a seat in the legislature as soon as possible.
She has hired a new chief of staff and is in the process of hiring a new communications director, but before she can take her place in the official Opposition leader’s office in Victoria, she will need to win a byelection to become an MLA.
Here are three things you need to know.
Will Findlay have to ask an MLA to step aside?
Yes, the first step toward getting a new party leader into the legislature is to have an MLA step aside and have wait for Premier David Eby call a byelection.
This most recently happened at the federal level with Conservative MP Damien Kurek stepping aside in an Alberta riding to let party leader Pierre Poilievre run after he lost his seat in an Ottawa-area riding. At the provincial level, former B.C. Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson gave up his seat in Vancouver—Quilchena in 2022 to allow new party leader Kevin Falcon to run.
UBC political scientist Stewart Prest said that a new leader like Findlay asking an MLA to resign their seat is a delicate process.
He said it is better if an MLA steps up to offer their seat. Several sources have told Postmedia that two or three MLAs have offered their seats to Findlay, but no decision has been made on where she might run.
Two sources also say that Surrey—Serpentine River MLA Linda Hepner is one of the MLAs who has offered to step aside. The former Surrey mayor narrowly won her seat in 2024 over NDP candidate and former RCMP officer Baltej Singh Dhillon, with Hepner pulling 49.7 per cent of the vote to Dhillon’s 47.5 per cent.
Prest said that this would be a great opportunity for Findlay to win a seat close to her Surrey home in a battleground riding. But, he said, it might be risky given the chance for defeat.
According to Prest, another possible scenario would be to have Findlay’s husband, Surrey South MLA Brent Chapman, to step aside. But they appear to view themselves as a team at the centre of the party, so that is unlikely to happen.
“It is going to be a decision to watch closely for those who support both Chapman and Findlay. I think it’s understandable that he need not step aside because he can be clearly a strong support to his spouse in caucus,” said Prest.
“But it also is perhaps going to rub some the wrong way, if there’s a sense that someone else is being compelled to step aside instead of Chapman. So the internal politics are important here as well.”
What is the timing of a byelection?
Once an MLA has stepped down, Eby has six months to call a byelection, although the Conservatives are likely hoping the premier is magnanimous and calls the byelection right away.
Campaigns for byelections in B.C. last 28 days, with final count coming at least four days after voting day.
Prest believes the best time to hold a byelection would be in the fall, as voters will likely not be paying much attention to politics during the summer.
“That seems like a reasonable time to schedule it, but then again, perhaps the government is not in a mood to be reasonable, so they may drag things out, or they may just want to get on with the politics as usual and do it sooner rather than later.”
What impact will this have on the NDP?
A byelection gives the government an opportunity to strengthen its one-seat majority and deny the new Conservative leader a seat, potentially setting the party back and preventing Findlay’s leadership from getting off the ground.
NDP house leader Mike Farnworth accused Findlay of causing division within her own ranks rather than working toward calling a byelection, pointing to her comments during the leadership campaign that Kamloops Centre MLA and leadership opponent Peter Milobar would have be in a conflict of interest as party leader given his wife is Indigenous.
“If she had spent more time building bridges with other B.C. Conservatives instead of attacking them over things like their family members’ ethnicity, she might have already found a seat to run in,” said Farnworth.
Mike McKinnon, Enterprise’s Western Canada director, said Findlay isn’t well known and an election campaign gives the NDP a chance to define her.
“After spending several months campaigning for the job, she’s now spent a few weeks hiding from the media, so there hasn’t been a lot of opportunity for her to convey her vision to British Columbians,” said McKinnon.
“What has been communicated to them in absence of her being present in the public is that she sympathized with Alberta separatists, that she went to Alberta for a $500 a ticket fundraiser with (Alberta Premier) Danielle Smith, and she’s been pretty much MIA since.”