John Rustad was dead asleep Thursday night when his phone started buzzing. He woke up with a start, but didn’t get it in time.
“A message came in,” he said. It was BC Conservative leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay. “She had removed me from caucus,” Rustad told Northern Beat.
It was a bold move by Findlay, part of a series of unilateral firings she undertook by phone in an extraordinary series of hours Thursday night and into Friday morning.
Removing Rustad, who as leader took the party from zero elected MLAs to 44 in the last election, sent ripples through the Conservative ranks. His phone beeped with another message 15 minutes later.
“The firing was rescinded,” he recalled. He went back to sleep. By Friday morning, Findlay had fired him again.
“Do you know of any other politician in Canadian history who has been fired twice in 24 hours from the same party?” Rustad said.
Rustad has a full story to tell, and said he’ll do it Monday at a press conference at the legislature. But part of it comes from his decision to openly call for Findlay to resign at an emergency Conservative caucus meeting on Wednesday night, due a loss of confidence in her leadership.
The only other person to call on Findlay to resign at that meeting was Skeena MLA Claire Rattée. By Friday morning, Findlay had fired her too.
Findlay then completed the political hat trick Friday by dismissing Surrey-White Rock’s Trevor Halford.
In Halford’s case, Findlay accused him of calling around to collect signatures on a caucus letter of MLAs demanding the leader step down for the good of the party. The story quickly leaked into Conservative-friendly online outlets.
Halford denied the accusations, and apparently did not even sign the letter himself. But Findlay dismissed him anyway.
Findlay fires two former leaders and one fierce critic
The three firings bring to 12 the number of MLAs who have departed the BC Conservative caucus since Findlay became leader — a third of the caucus in slightly more than a month.
Rattée, who has strong connections to influential members of the federal and provincial Conservative parties, is refusing to relinquish her BC Conservative status to a leader who has yet to win a riding.
“She does not have the authority to remove any member of our caucus,” Rattée said in an online statement.
“Most importantly, she shouldn’t be trying to. That she is attempting to remove BC Conservative incumbent MLAs on the eve of a potential snap election is yet another example of her demonstrating poor judgment that doesn’t befit someone who is attempting to become premier.”
Rattée had been openly defying the leader for days, including posting a previous public letter Tuesday criticizing Findlay for skipping caucus meetings, refusing to take calls and not uniting her team.
She said, under Findlay, the party has failed to prepare for the prospect of a snap election by Premier David Eby. And Rattée openly admitted to being one of at least 10 MLAs to sign the letter calling on Findlay to resign.
“I was elected as a BC Conservative MLA and that’s not going to change,” wrote Rattée. I’m not going anywhere.”
But even as her statement was being posted online, Findlay’s officials were clearing out her office in the legislature. At least one remaining MLA cited relief that the removal of those three MLAs in particular would lower the amount of political games being played over replacing Findlay as leader.
Rattée also cited the fact she had been targeted by a private investigator allegedly hired by the party’s former executive director to dig up dirt on critics. The investigator’s list of 14 people to probe included current and former BC Conservative MLAs, two former party executives, an NDP MLA, an NDP staffer, the founder of Lululemon and a journalist (full disclosure: me).
It’s unclear what the PI found, because he had not been paid by the party since Allen was removed from the job by the BC Conservative board last month.
‘There will be more coming,’ says Centre BC leader
As the Conservatives were shedding MLAs, an offshoot party was picking them up Friday.
Kamloops’ Peter Milobar, who quit the Conservatives because of Findlay last month, announced he was merging his still-unnamed political party with the CentreBC party.
Milobar took with him seven ex-Conservative MLAs, plus picked up independent MLA Elenore Sturko, to give the new CentreBC eight total MLAs and the status as B.C.’s third-largest political party.
“Lets face it, it’s a you-know-what-show at the BC Conservatives right now,” said Milobar. He promised a professional, competent and serious party for voters who dislike the BC NDP.
Will Rustad, Halford and Rattée join, alongside still-independents Brennan Day and Scott McInnis?
“There will be more coming,” was all Milobar would say.
But they are also running out of time. Eby continued to ramp up his rhetoric over an early election Friday, saying the province is in a consequential moment with the U.S. trade war and voters deserve a chance to pick its future. Potentially, any day now.