BURST
Phone calls are flying among B.C. Conservative MLAs and staffers, current and former, as the party struggles to find a path forward after a flood of MLA resignations and leaks of internal conversations.
Six MLAs have left the party in less than two weeks, with Bruce Banman of Abbotsford South becoming the latest defection on Thursday. And several sources say it is expected that more could leave before the Conservative caucus meeting on Monday at 9 a.m. in Richmond.
“Person after person has informed me they have decided that our new leader is unelectable,” said Banman in a statement.
Please see my statement below: pic.twitter.com/h3SxnwCKTK
— Bruce Banman (@BruceBanman) August 27, 2026
Others want to hear what Findlay has to say before deciding whether to stay or go.
Accounts of phone conversations provided to Postmedia paint a picture of chaos, with some MLAs fielding hours of calls while on vacation or learning about the latest development from social media posts.
Many seem shell shocked at the pace of resignations and wonder if they, too, should make the move. The Conservative caucus is now don to 31 MLAs, from 44 after the last election.
For those not a fan of Findlay’s leadership, vent sessions hear complaints about people the Conservative leader has brought in, including chief of staff Chris Delaney and the recently fired operations director Apollo Chung, and Findlay’s treatment of MLAs and staff.
Chung was fired Wednesday, with no reason given for his dismissal.
Many, however, are hesitant to pull the plug, according to sources, and still think there is a chance they can make positive changes from inside the party.
“You’ve got three choices. Go now, go later, or go down with the ship,” one former staffer said on background of the choice facing MLAs. “That’s your choices, but she can’t win an election.”
For some of those who still support Findlay, the resignations are a good thing because many of the MLAs who are leaving are viewed as former B.C. Liberals and not true conservatives.
Kristina Loewen, Conservative MLA for Kelowna Centre, said her message to colleagues about staying or leaving is that nothing has changed since the 2024 election.
“Our policies and platform are still the same, and we’re still setting out to do the same thing. So people need to look directly into their own conscience and decide for themselves, and then either get on board or not,” she said.
“We welcome everyone and we look forward to defeating the NDP. And I think the other thing is we’re the only party that is positioned to defeat the NDP when an election is called sometime in the next two years.”
Already, however, business leaders and a mix of federal Liberal and federal Conservative strategists are having conversations about a Findlay-less future.
On Wednesday afternoon, 60 people met in the basement of a White Spot in downtown Vancouver and discussed options for how to bring B.C.’s centre-right back to a place where it can defeat the NDP.
Jordan Bateman, vice-president of communications for the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association of B.C., attended and said it was standing room only.
He said there were no hard decisions made at the meeting but that there was a slide put up showing different paths the group could take. This included forming a new party or finding a way to prop up the Conservatives.
“By all reports, donations are way down to just a few hundred dollars a week. Expenses are way up as much as tens of thousands of dollars a month in costs determined by the leader. We had the recording of that staffer yesterday,” Bateman said of the Conservatives.
“Those are the under-the-hood things that political folks like me look at. There’s obviously the visible way the car looks, but you pop the hood, you look at the engine, you go, geez, there’s not enough money coming in, there’s too much money going out, and you know a bunch of these decisions are being made in very short-sighted manners.”
He said there were no elected officials at the meeting nor were any of the unsuccessful B.C. Conservative leadership candidates there.
Communications professional Rachael Segal attended the meeting and said she couldn’t even get a seat, it was so full.
Now working for Independent MLA Peter Milobar of Kamloops Centre, who left the Conservative caucus on Aug. 14, Segal said the meeting was a “pulse check” to see what other members of the centre-right are feeling.
“If we’re starting to see people resign, people that are very dedicated to ensuring there is a centre-right party in this province, then what does that mean moving forward? And so, it was the last few weeks, last 10 days that this started to happen.”
According to the party’s constitution, a leader can only be forced out due to “resignation, death, incapacitation, or the leadership review vote resulting in less than 50 per cent support of the party members in good standing.”
A source with deep connections to the B.C. Conservatives told Postmedia that Findlay is likely to remain leader unless she loses in the upcoming byelection in Abbotsford-Mission, but that it is also looking less and less like the party will remain a big-tent moving forward.
“I think it’s becoming less recoverable that she’s going to lead a grand coalition to victory,” they said. “It increasingly seems likely that it’s going to splinter or she’s going to depart at some point.”