BURSTThe B.C. Conservative Party’s implosion over the past few weeks has rocked the provincial political landscape.
Defections, firings, and resignations have happened so quickly that it’s been hard to keep up.
So here is a review: Over the first two months of Kerry-Lynne Findlay’s tenure following her May 30 leadership race win, a raft of party and caucus officials were fired or resigned.
In their place, people such as former B.C. Reform Party president Chris Delaney, former Alberta Republican Party executive director Apollo Chung and former Juno News editor Cosmin Dzsurdzsa took their place.
Discontent with these changes began to boil over within the caucus as many MLAs complained about being sidelined from decision-making and media communications.
Meanwhile, Findlay held just two in-person caucus meetings to hear them out.
Then on July 30, party executive director Angelo Isidorou resigned. Findlay loyalist Elaine Allen took his place.
On Aug. 14, the exodus of elected caucus members began with Kamloops Centre MLA Peter Milobar, citing a difference in “values” with the party leader.
Less than a week later, on Aug. 20, party president Aisha Estey stepped down and was replaced by party board member Mauro Francis.
Estey’s departure made it clear a broader meltdown might be underway.
Four days later, the real deluge of resignations began when Delta South MLA Ian Paton left. He accused Findlay and her team of “muzzling” him in his role as agriculture critic, and pledged to form a new party with Milobar.
He also alleged that Findlay — who does not have a seat in the legislature — asked him to resign so she could run in a by-election in his riding, offering him a job in the party if he did so. Reports are that others were offered a similar deal.
This could run afoul of the Criminal Code of Canada, which prohibits offering a “reward or benefit” to entice a public office holder to resign. Paton says the RCMP interviewed him this week about the allegations.
Findlay denies wrongdoing
A wave of resignations from the caucus has followed. This includes Prince George-Valemount MLA Rosalyn Bird, Richmond-Bridgeport MLA Teresa Wat, Courtenay-Comox MLA Brennan Day, Abbotsford South MLA Bruce Banman, Chilliwack-Cultus Lake MLA Á’a:líya Warbus, Boundary-Similkameen MLA Donegal Wilson and Columbia River Revelstoke MLA Scott McInnis.
The resignation letters have become progressively more scathing.
“When Ms. Findlay became Leader, I promised myself I would keep an open mind and give her three months to show us how she intended to lead,” Wilson said in her Sept. 2 letter. “Three months later, I have my answer. I never imagined things could go this wrong, this quickly.”
Along with the nine defectors, Abbotsford-Mission MLA Reann Gasper quit her seat entirely to allow Findlay space to run for a seat in the legislature. That by-election is now scheduled for Sept. 26, and Gasper is Findlay’s chief of staff, recently replacing Delaney, who quit amid snowballing controversies and allegations.
This is all in addition to six others who had already left the party since the 2024 election before Findlay even took over.
Two of these MLAs are facing criminal charges.
Richmond Centre MLA Hon Chan was kicked out of the caucus when charged in an alleged case of intimate partner violence.
And Peace River North MLA Jordan Kealy is facing sexual assault charges, though he had already quit when this was revealed.
Former party leader John Rustad had kicked out Vancouver-Quilchena MLA Dalla Brodie for social media posts about residential schools in March of 2025. Kealy and Kelowna-Lake Country Coldstream MLA Tara Armstrong left with her.
Armstrong and Brodie briefly united to form the OneBC Party. But the pair went their separate ways after an argument about whether to fire a staffer for allegedly racist social media posts, leaving the party to Brodie.
Rustad also booted Surrey-Cloverdale MLA Elenore Sturko, alleging she was organizing against him. Soon after, Penticton-Summerland MLA Amelia Boultbee quit in solidarity.
Sturko currently sits as an Independent. Boultbee has crossed the floor to join the NDP.
There are now just 28 out of the 44 B.C. Conservative MLAs elected in 2024 on the party’s slate. And more are still expected to leave.
Five of the recent defectors have declared they will start a new party. Milobar will be the interim leader, joined by Paton, Bird, Banman and Warbus. Several more have expressed interest, but are waiting to see how the party’s formation plays out.
It now seems as though the Conservative Party is crashing down nearly as quickly as it rose to Official Opposition.
A meteoric rise
In August of 2022, Rustad was ejected from the B.C. Liberal Party by Leader Kevin Falcon. At that time, the B.C. Conservative Party had zero MLAs.
Then on Feb. 16, 2023, Rustad joined the fledgling Tory party and gave them a seat for the first time in a decade.
Less than two months later, he was acclaimed as party leader and a new era began.
During the following 18 months, as several more MLAs defected from B.C. United (the newly rebranded B.C. Liberals), Rustad and party executive director Isidorou turned what had once been an afterthought into a political force.
This was also a time when Pierre Poilievre’s federal Conservative Party surged in the polls, harnessing dissatisfaction with former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s leadership.
The provincial Conservatives are separate from the federal party, but they share a name, and their political fortunes rose in tandem.
Falcon saw the writing on the wall and capitulated, withdrawing all his candidates from the 2024 election on Aug. 28, less than two months before voting was set to begin.
This was a backroom deal, and most sitting MLAs were not even aware of what was going on until it was too late to talk Falcon out of it.
Those who wanted to remain in the race under a party banner were forced to pledge allegiance to the Conservative brand and join Rustad. Anyone deemed too far left was left out. Some chose to run as Independents, but they all lost.
The resulting coalition stormed to within three ridings of winning the election and taking over government, falling just 22 votes short in the Surrey-Guildford riding of robbing Premier David Eby of his majority.
In the end, the Conservatives won 44 seats, the NDP 47 and the B.C. Greens two.
Fast forward two years, and the Conservatives are down to just 28 MLAs. The NDP still has 47 MLAs, and the Green Party still has two; but there are also 10 Independents and five members of a yet-to-be-named party. The Vancouver-Strathcona seat is vacant after the death of Joan Phillip, and Abbotsford-Mission is vacant after Reann Gasper’s resignation.
What could happen now?
For the most part, the quickly assembled Conservative “big tent” coalition has appeared too big and not solidly constructed enough.
Findlay beat Caroline Elliott 51 per cent to 49 per cent on the fourth ballot at the May 30 leadership convention. But despite the delicate nature of the coalition she was taking over, she seems to have avoided meaningful bridge-building with those who did not support her.
Instead of building on the solid ground of the previous two years, Findlay chose to fire or force out most of the staff at both the party and in the caucus. Those are the people who work with the MLAs in the legislature daily. They were relied upon, and many were well-liked.
During this upheaval, many MLAs say they were not included in strategy sessions and were sometimes prevented from talking to the press. Ian Paton cited this when he quit the party.
Meanwhile, a steady stream of revelations about the Findlay camp has been released through leaked videos, audio and documents posted to anonymous social media accounts, but verified by those who have left the caucus.
This has painted a less-than-flattering picture of the people Findlay surrounds herself with, and backs up the complaints of defectors.
If Findlay is to turn it around and stem the tide, she will need to make some wholesale changes.
And some changes are underway. Several of her more controversial hires have left, including her former chief of staff, Chris Delaney.
Findlay also released a statement on Thursday (Sept 4) that seems to finally admit at least some degree of fault, though it falls far short of a true mea culpa.
“I was elected to lead this party, and I intend to lead it with determination, with humility and with the experience to know that strong leaders listen, learn and make changes when changes are needed,” the statement reads.
Whether this is enough to stop the hemorrhaging will be up to the remaining caucus members and the voters of Abbotsford-Mission to decide.
But even if more caucus members leave, and the voters keep her out of the legislature, it will be extremely difficult to pry loose Findlay’s grasp on the Conservative Party.
According to the party constitution, there is very little — if anything — that they can do to remove her from her post. By party rules, the leader can only be removed if they die or are deemed “professionally incapacitated.”
The party board used that last clause to oust Rustad.
But it’s unlikely two leaders in a row can be deemed “professionally incapacitated.”
This leaves the ball firmly in Findaly’s court.