B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad is set to face a leadership review this summer as the province’s centre-right party is embroiled by allegations of blackmail and by two splinter parties.
Rustad’s leadership review is part of the party’s constitution, and unlike many other parties, will not take place at a large convention.
Instead, the votes will happen on a riding-by-riding basis, and the results will be announced at a convention in the fall. Rustad can only be removed if he receives less than 50 per cent support in the review.
His party has been rocked recently by allegations of blackmail, with a leaked letter from Rustad containing accusations that MLAs who left to form their own party, OneBC, had threatened to release text messages and alleged secret recordings from Tory staff.
B.C. Conservative leader’s letter alleges blackmail by ex-members
A political scientist says that Rustad continues to face issues uniting the moderate and social conservative elements of his party, even as one of his party’s MLAs said the caucus supports him.
Aisha Estey, president of the B.C. Conservative Party, said the party was having riding-by-riding leadership votes to facilitate manned voting stations and give its thousands of members a 30-day notice period.
“This is purely a practical necessity that it takes place over the summer, because we have many ridings to get to and it’ll take a bit of time,” she told CBC News.
Party members in the Kootenay-Rockies riding voted on Saturday, and another vote is set to take place in Surrey on June 30.
The exact date for future votes and of the fall party convention have not been announced.
In an undated letter written by Rustad, leaked to media last week, the leader says that three MLAs who left the party’s caucus had threatened to release texts to blackmail some B.C. Conservative caucus staff into quitting and working for them. CBC News has verified the letter was sent by the Tory leader to his caucus.
In the letter, Rustad described the behaviour as “unethical, abusive, and potentially criminal.” The Tory leader has, thus far, not commented publicly about the letter, which was seen to reference the splinter OneBC party formed by two former Tory MLAs, Dallas Brodie and Tara Armstrong.
Vancouver-Quilchena MLA Brodie was kicked out of the Conservative caucus in March for her statements about residential schools. Armstrong, of Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream, and Jordan Kealy of Peace River North left the party shortly after in solidarity.
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All three have denied that they engaged in blackmail, pointing out that Rustad has not produced any evidence to support his claims. The B.C. NDP has written to the RCMP to ask it to investigate the claims.
Estey dubbed the blackmail allegations an “unfortunate distraction from the outside” that was having very little effect on party members internally.
“I think that our MLAs have been doing a fantastic job under John’s leadership in the legislature, and in question period, holding the NDP to account,” she said. “So I think generally we’re pretty confident.”
At an unrelated news conference on Monday, Kelowna-Mission MLA Gavin Dew was asked whether he had confidence in Rustad.
“I think we all have confidence in John Rustad … we all want to make sure that our party is set up for success, and we all want to make sure that we’re focused on the task at hand,” he said.
In addition to OneBC, which is aiming to appeal to social conservatives, former B.C. Liberal MLA Karin Kirkpatrick has set up Centre B.C. to appeal to more moderate centre-right voters who don’t want to vote Conservative.
Stewart Prest, a political scientist at the University of B.C., says that Rustad will continue to face an uphill battle in uniting moderate and social Conservatives within his party.
“The leadership of Mr. Rustad is fraught, and there is no easy way to bring … these two factions back together again, save the promise of imminent victory. And we don’t have that at the moment,” he said. “And so, I think the infighting will continue.”
“It may not rise to the level of somebody actually campaigning openly for Mr. Rustad’s job, but I would expect there would be grumblings on both sides of that divide.”
