The B.C. Conservative Party continues to shed members to the left and to the right.
After last fall’s election, the party had 44 members in the legislature. It now has 40, with two former MLAs sitting as Independents and two having formed the new One B.C. party.
The B.C. legislature begins its fall sitting on Monday, Oct. 6. This is the second of three articles previewing the session. The first focused on the B.C. Greens, while the third will outline the government’s priorities.
The new splinter party, One B.C., will have full party privileges for the first time this session — including the chance to lob daily criticisms at the government during question period.
Dallas Brodie, One B.C.’s interim leader, said she expects to use that time to ask questions that “no other people in the House are willing to ask.”
She plans to continue questioning the evidence of children’s graves found at residential schools, and advocating for the repeal of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA). Her perspective is that these issues impact every other file that is important to British Columbians.
“There’s no reason for us to be in a deficit situation,” she said. “This is self-inflicted wounds. What are we doing? We’re spending money rewriting laws that produce nothing for our bottom line.”
It was Brodie’s stance on residential schools that led to her departure from the B.C. Conservative Party, which continues to be roiled by internal division over this issue and others. On Wednesday, Conservative Leader John Rustad fired a staffer over a social media post disparaging Reconciliation Day.
Conservative House Leader Á’a:líya Warbus, a member of the Stó:lō Nation, slammed Brodie for her comments about residential schools during the spring session. She said she has not met with Brodie or One B.C. MLA Tara Armstrong to discuss any plans for a joint front of opposition to the government’s agenda.
“I’m really not going to take any of the limited energy I have to places that aren’t worth the cause,” she said when asked if there are still hard feelings between her and the One B.C. MLAs.
Asked about her personal position on DRIPA, which Rustad has said ought to be repealed, Warbus said it is hard to use “one brush” to address Indigenous relations in B.C.
“It’s presumptuous to think that there’s going to be one tool or one answer for a very long-standing, complex question,” she said.
Warbus wants to focus on holding the NDP government to account, especially on issues such as mental health, the opioid addiction crisis and a declining forestry sector. But she had difficulty shaking off rumours of continued discontent within the caucus.
“I truly hope that we can all focus, recalibrate and understand that we’re in this together until we’re not,” she said. “And if anyone wants to have a conversation that’s different than that, then we’ll have those conversations within caucus under lock and key, and hopefully keep our business between us.”
The B.C. Conservatives are also losing members on the left flank. Surrey-Cloverdale MLA Elenore Sturko, a self-proclaimed social liberal and fiscal conservative, was booted from the party on Sept. 22, accused by Rustad of organizing caucus members against him.
She said she remains focused on the issues she has long championed — mental health, addiction and public safety — and laments the fact that the Conservatives are still getting media attention for internal divisions instead of holding the government to account.
“Instead of keeping the focus on those issues, we have an opposition that continues to turn the camera inside on itself,” she said.
While Sturko is working with the government on mental health policy, she has no intention of joining the NDP.
“They didn’t ask me, but they probably interpreted my strong opposition to their policies as a pretty good indication,” she said. “I am not going to join the NDP.”
Peace River North MLA Jordan Kealy, the other ex-Conservative, now-Independent, does not intend to join with any party at this point either, laughing at the suggestion he would ever consider a spot in the NDP’s “socialist” caucus. Unburdened, Kealy plans to focus on rural issues and northern priorities, while maintaining conservative ideological stances that he says the B.C. Conservative Party is drifting away from..
“One of the great things about being an independent is that I can speak directly for my constituents,” he said, pointing out how overwhelmingly conservative his Peace River North riding is.
He plans to work on practical, local issues.
“When I talk about the Taylor Bridge falling down, I’m not joking,” he said. “Our roads are starting to crumble.”
University of British Columbia lecturer Stewart Prest says all this right-wing division is unlikely to settle this fall.
“I think we’re going to see questions swirling about Mr. Rustad’s leadership of that party ongoing,” he said.
All this infighting inevitably takes the pressure off the NDP, Prest said, at least in the short term.
“Whenever they are arguing amongst themselves, they are not going to be really maintaining their attention and their fire on the NDP in the way that they might otherwise,” he said. “So that gives the NDP some respite.”