B.C. Conservatives face identity crisis and growing pains amid defections, prof. says
While Leader John Rustad says party continues to build itself out, pundits say it's also under threat
B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad admits it's been a tough week but says it's not unexpected in a party that was built and grown so quickly.
"We're still in the building phase. So you know, were some mistakes made? Did we get through a proper vetting process with some candidates? Clearly, we've had a few issues."
But the Tory leader says he's still optimistic the Conservatives will continue to expand their membership and strength around the province.
On Friday, Vancouver-Quilchena MLA Dallas Brodie was kicked out of the Conservative caucus for comments about residential schools on a podcast, prompting fellow MLAs Jordan Kealy and Tara Armstrong to leave the party.
They later announced on Monday they would sit as Independents, with Armstrong saying the party had been infiltrated by "woke liberals."
While Leader John Rustad says the party remains focused on holding the governing B.C. NDP to account, political watchers say that Rustad faces a major task in corralling its centrist and centre-right factions.
University of B.C. political scientist Stewart Prest says it's a byproduct of the party's quick ascent on the political scene just before the election last year, in which both moderate pro-business candidates and those who ran on socially conservative views wound up getting elected.
"I think we are seeing the B.C. Conservatives in a slow-moving civil war that's likely going to crystallize around questions of John Rustad's leadership," Prest said on Monday.
Rustad, who faces a leadership review at the end of the year, took on a number of former centrist B.C. United candidates, along with a number of political newcomers as candidates before the election.
He allowed free speech within his caucus, refusing to whip them on votes in the legislature, encouraging what he called a "big tent" party.
But Prest says that the free speech policy is a byproduct of the Conservatives' inability to coalesce around a single set of values and speaks to the two warring factions within the caucus.
"Effectively, we continue to have something that used to be the B.C. United and something that used to be the B.C. Conservatives trying to represent their respective selves within a single party," he said.
"And so that kind of grouping is not going to be whippable."
Are more defections likely?
Rustad says the two MLAs who left his caucus never fully supported his leadership, backing a candidate for party president that wasn't aligned with him at the recent party convention.
"It clearly would have been better if we had tried to have everybody stay in the tent. It was something that, you know, I worked on over the period of time to have them in," he told CBC's The Early Edition on Monday. "But these people had something else in mind."
Kareem Allam, a political strategist and former B.C. Liberal campaign manager, says that if the divisions within the Conservatives get worse, there could be more defections and even a three-way split in the caucus.
"I think by the end of the year, it's in all likelihood [Rustad] is going to get pushed out," he said.
Defecting MLAs face questions
With Kealy and Armstrong leaving the Conservative caucus to sit as Independents, the question of whether they were going against their constituents' wishes — voters elected them under the Conservative banner — came up on Friday.
However, within the context of the Conservatives' ongoing identity crisis, Prest says the question of whether voters were betrayed is not so clear-cut for the defecting MLAs.
"In many ways, the vote for the B.C. Conservatives was a vote against the NDP as the incumbent party, a vote against the status quo, and the B.C. Conservatives rode that wave without fully ironing out these differences among the different factions," he said.
Prest says that, beyond the rarely-used function to recall MLAs, the ultimate accountability for the defecting MLAs and the Conservatives would be at the next provincial election.
The political scientist says that if the Conservatives can't present a more coherent alternative to the B.C. NDP then, voters would not entrust them with government.
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With files from Meera Bains, On The Coast and The Early Edition