B.C. Conservative Party Leader John Rustad explained away some of the arguments within his party at their convention in Nanaimo last weekend.
“If everybody was singing kumbaya, and all the same, you’re not a true party. You need to see the differences. You need to look at that as a strength.”
By that weird measure, BC Conservatives have never looked “stronger” than they did this week.
They’re so strong, they look ready to explode.
Six days after his soothing words, he dropped the pretense Friday and kicked one of his biggest troublemakers out of the caucus.
Vancouver MLA Dallas Brodie, who refused his demand that she delete a loaded post about “zero” bodies being discovered at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, has been ejected.
For two weeks she defied him. Then she doubled down with an appalling appearance on a podcast. Rustad described her as publicly mocking and belittling testimony of residential school survivors.
He said she used a child-like whine to mimic their testimony, saying “my grandmother’s truth” and “my truth, your truth.”
Brodie was also the feature attraction at a closed Conservative caucus meeting Thursday morning. The CBC reported that it turned into a yelling match from which some livid members stormed out.
It stemmed partly from the rift Brodie started with the party’s house leader, A’aliya Warbus, over the child-death remark.
Brodie told the podcaster: “There’s a person who’s Indigenous [Warbus] and she was super angry and … and joined the NDP to call me out. … In our party we actually brought in some people who, I’m just going to say this, belong in the NDP.”
Referring to that furious caucus meeting, Rustad said Brodie invited the party to fire her, demanded that her (former) colleagues vote on it and walked out.
He said she was kicked out over the belittling remarks, not whether there are undiscovered bodies at the school.
The eruption came two days after what turned out to be another jaw-dropping Conservative moment, when Surrey MLA Bryan Tepper introduced a social-media influencer from Prince George in the legislature, saying: “Please make this Canadian patriot and independent commentator feel most welcome.”
It turned out the “patriot” has rabid online observations about the tariff crisis and other matters. His posts include: “That fat pig Doug Ford in Ontario is ready to cut off power… this is an act of war.”
He has referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “the freaking Ukrainian grifter” and applauded U.S. President Donald Trump’s attack on him: “America’s back, baby, Zelenskyy gets put in his effing place.”
The warm introduction makes you wonder if Tepper or other MLAs share that view — and which side they are on in the trade war. The introduction came a week after five B.C. Conservative MLAs couldn’t bring themselves to support an NDP motion condemning Trump and expressing support for Team Canada.
Rustad himself was weak at the outset of the tariff attack, criticizing NDP plans to retaliate and urging Premier David Eby to work with the U.S. He has since firmed it up, expressing patriotic views and condemning the U.S.
It’s difficult for an opposition — which has a sworn duty to oppose — when people are rallying around their leaders in the face of an outside threat. It takes some finesse, which is completely absent from the B.C. Conservative side.
In normal times, the NDP government would be in a bit of political difficulty at this point. They blew their majority in the fall election, dragged out the return of the legislature and had to sign a deal with the B.C. Greens to provide some breathing room.
The throne speech last month was mostly about reciting past programs. This week, they introduced an insipid budget built on a ludicrously high new load of debt.
It has been a weak start.
But when Eby walked on the front lawn of the legislature this week to do a news conference, he got a smattering of spontaneous applause from bystanders. It wasn’t a choreographed bit by party supporters, but genuine citizens. That doesn’t happen very often.
There are other serious tensions in the B.C. Conservative caucus and they may erupt publicly as well.
On Friday, MLA Jordan Kealy (Peace River North) quit the caucus, saying it is “toxic,” full of bullies and “eating itself alive.” Later in the day, MLA Tara Armstrong (Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream) also quit.
The B.C. Conservatives may be waffling a bit on the tariff war, but they are laser-focused on blowing the best chance they will ever have to form government.
