Accusations of cheating, threats and blackmail — just what exactly is going on these days in the world of B.C.’s official opposition party?
The BC Conservatives have found themselves rocked by a series of external attacks, internal rifts and bizarre allegations, chipping away at the party’s credibility.
It looked like leader John Rustad might be nearing a precipice, with all eyes on a much-anticipated caucus meeting in Surrey on Wednesday.
But Rustad, as he so often has done since taking over the party in 2023, defied his critics, emerging from the meeting with his entire caucus standing behind him in a show of support.
Inside, former premier Gordon Campbell had addressed the 41-member caucus, urging them to embrace being inside a big tent party.
Campbell, who brought together the centre-right under the BC Liberal banner and crushed the NDP in the 2001 election, told the Conservative MLAs to wake up, get over the growing pains, unite behind Rustad and hold the line to defeat the BC NDP in the next election.
Campbell’s pep talk came as polling firm Mainstreet Research put the BC Conservatives at 44 per cent voter approval, compared to 41 per cent for the BC NDP on Wednesday.
Although Mainstreet has not been the most reliable polling firm, and other pollsters like Leger show Premier David Eby continuing to outpace Rustad, the numbers are nonetheless a shot in the arm for the beleaguered Conservative caucus.
In addition, Angus Reid reported this month a seven percentage point drop in Eby’s popularity, as the public refocuses from U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff war back onto local issues like crime, healthcare and affordability.
That’s the good news for the Conservatives.
The bad news is pretty much everything else.
Fired BC Conservative staffer claims wrongdoing
The upstart OneBC party, made up of former Conservative MLAs Dallas Brodie and Tara Armstrong, is accusing Rustad and his allies of rigging the party’s AGM on March 1 to re-elect his slate to the executive.
They’ve provided no credible evidence to back up the claim that Rustad paid delegates to attend the convention and vote for him, among other procedural allegations, but they’ve called on Rustad to conduct a third-party audit of the convention. He’s refused.
At the centre of the dispute is Tim Thielmann, the former Conservative candidate for Victoria-Beacon Hill who was fired from the Conservative caucus staff post-election and then went on to run for party president at the AGM.
Thielmann picked up only 35 votes, compared to 350 votes for Aisha Estey, a Rustad loyalist, who was re-elected as president. He’s now chief of staff to MLA Brodie.
Thielmann has pointed to unspecified evidence of AGM wrongdoing by an unnamed Conservative staffer, as well as unreleased messages and other material.
That prompted Rustad to write a six-page letter to his caucus, urging them to come forward to him if OneBC was threatening to release screenshots of their private messages, recordings or phone calls.
“They are attempting to blackmail individuals into taking jobs or contracts with them while simultaneously attempting to force them to do or say certain things in order to prevent blackmail materials from being leaked,” Rustad wrote.
“From what I have been told, the threat is framed as something like: we will pay you handsomely to join with us, and we will damage you if you refuse.”
BC NDP stir the pot
Once the letter leaked earlier this month, the BC NDP jumped in to stir the pot.
Premier Eby said blackmail is a criminal allegation, and his caucus wrote a letter to the RCMP urging it to investigate.
“This is a serious matter. This is our democracy. These are our elected officials,” Eby told CKNW host Jas Johal on June 20.
“Those are profound allegations. If he made them lightly, then shame on him. If he made them seriously, then they should be investigated and prosecuted.”
Ex-Conservative denies blackmail allegations
Rustad faced internal pressure and backlash not to get the police involved in party affairs, as well as for even writing the letter in the first place. He backpedalled away from the blackmail allegations, saying staff have told him they don’t want to make statements to police and would prefer to move on.
“I certainly don’t regret writing the letter,” Rustad said Wednesday.
“I do, you know, think about whether I should have used the word blackmail. That was how staff described it to me. So it’s unfortunate that that has become very politicized in terms of it, and I don’t want to say a whole lot more.”
He said OneBC can do whatever it wants with whatever information it professes to have.
“Desperate men do desperate things and John Rustad right now is a very desperate man,” Thielmann said on CKNW June 18.
He denied blackmailing any Conservatives, saying he’s offered them no money, and made no threats other than to urge them to tell the truth.
“We have all kinds of damning evidence that will bring Rustad down,” said Thielmann.
While this all plays out, Rustad is in the midst of a long and unusual leadership review.
Conservative ridings are individually voting on the leader, with all party members getting to cast a ballot. With more than 9,000 members, in 93 ridings, the process will take months. The ballots ask if a person is in favour of Rustad’s leadership. He needs 51 per cent support to avoid a leadership election.
The review is expected to be complete by the fall. In the meantime, Campbell urged the Conservatives to unite around Rustad and focus on defeating Eby. Easier said than done, though, for a political movement that seems to enjoy directing its best attacks against itself, rather than its enemies.