Shucking Oysters: “I’m Not Going Anywhere”
By Alex Allen
Full disclosure: This article was in final draft when I read that Kerry-Lynne Findlay stepped down. So I frantically made a few last minute tweaks.
If you want to be a federal or provincial conservative leader, an important qualification it seems is a bald-headed refusal to step down despite internal revolt, caucus defections, and public friction. Once anointed, conservative leaders often struggle with the reality of their supreme irrelevancy. Federally, Pierre Poilievre still can’t face the fact that Carney won. The same slogans, the same outrage. In the meantime, how many by-elections has his party lost? Let alone his own riding? As a life-time politician with no “life” experience, PP will not exit gracefully. And in our bucolic province, BC Conservative leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay wasn’t going to budge either.
Not many politicians can survive the resignation of 10 caucus members, the “ouster of their hand-picked lieutenants, a simmering RCMP probe,” numerous audio leaks, and untoward conversations. “Except Findlay,” Rob Shaw wrote, “who just does not seem to care about the mounting pressure around her, or how fast the party is burning, as long as she remains in charge.”
Findlay, who will no longer be running in the upcoming September 26 Abbotsford-Mission by-election, “has held to a hard-line agenda that separates the pragmatic from the true believers.” Hamish Telford, associate professor of political science at the University of the Fraser Valley, said that “as people get older they tend to get more conservative in a small ‘c’ sense of the word, more cautious.” But Findlay – who turns 72 in January – has not only become more politically conservative, she has become more radicalized.
To date MLAs, Peter Milobar (Kamloops Centre/Central), Ian Paton (Delta South), Rosalyn Bird (Prince George-Valemount), Bruce Banman (Abbotsford South), Á’a:líya Warbus (Chilliwack-Cultus Lake), Teresa Wat (Richmond-Bridgeport), Donegal Wilson (Boundary-Similkameen), Scott McInnis (Columbia River-Revelstoke), Brennan Day (Courtenay-Comox) and MLA Linda Hepnerhave (Surrey-Serpentine River) have left. And just days ago, John Rustad (Nechako Lakes), Trevor Halford (Surrey-White Rock), and Claire Rattée (Skeena) were “removed.” As Les Leyne wrote: “Updating the seating chart at the legislature is turning into a full-time job in the clerk’s office … people are keeping an eye on the conservatives the way bird watchers study migration patterns.”
Findlay has lot’s of baggage and skeletons in her walk-in closet. She suggested Peter Milobar had a conflict of interest on Indigenous issues because he was married to an Indigenous woman. She promoted Heather Maahs, the conservative MLA for Chilliwack North, to be interim leader of the Opposition, who believes that “Jesus Christ is sovereign over all, including all civil governments.” She hired a private investigator to examine not only former conservative MLAs and staffers, but political columnist, Rob Shaw. And these are just a few of her indiscretions.
Toronto Star’s Richard Warnica wrote: “In BC, there aren’t enough conspiratorial, populist conservatives to encompass Findlay’s own caucus – members of which have been streaming for the exits like seniors after a three-hour matinee – let alone to win over plurality of voters. And therein lies the problem not just for the BC conservatives but for the Canadian conservative movement writ large.”
As one of her first acts in office, Findlay appointed Cosmin Dzsurdzsa as her party’s director of caucus communications. A right-wing commentator and writer for the pro-Kremlin Russia Insider, Dzsurdzsa’s public relations strategy with the media, was to “shut out beyond what’s absolutely necessary, because dealing with these clowns is still unfortunately part of the job, for now.”
Findlay’s chief of staff Chris Delaney, abruptly resigned this month, minutes before a leaked audio was posted online of him describing First Nations people as “natives” who historically starved to death because they weren’t smart enough to make more food until white people taught them about conservation.
Other high-profile staff departures included president Aisha Estey, vice-president Sharon White, and executive director Angelo Isidorou. Findlay also fired Apollo Cheung, the party’s director of operations, without explanation.
And let’s not forget, ex-CON Dallas Brodie (Vancouver-Quilchena), who regained leadership of OneBC party last December, after a spat with another ex-CON, Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream MLA Tara Armstrong. Reading like a script from the “Survivor” series: Brodie had tried to fire a staffer for posting antisemitic views, but Armstrong and other party officials disagreed. Brodie then had her chief of staff, Tim Thielmann, fire the staff member from the caucus, but he and party executive director Paul Ratchford rehired the man on the party side instead. Brodie then fired Thielmann and Ratchford, who, when party board members, had teamed up with Armstrong to get rid of Brodie as leader.
Milobar is now the anointed leader of CentreBC (“Putting people first and politics back on track”) after he and seven other former BC Conservative MLAs joined the party last week. They include Elenore Sturko, who has been sitting as an Independent since she was kicked out last year by then-leader John Rustad. Other members are Teresa Wat, Áʼa꞉líya Warbus, Ian Paton, Rosalyn Bird, Bruce Banman and Donegal Wilson.
Late breaking news: After barely four months as leader, Findlay had a rare mature moment and stepped down, as Rob Shaw wrote, “as if suddenly just waking from a coma to discover the crisis-level distraction she had actually become.” In her words: “I have made decisions I would make differently with the benefit of hindsight. I have listened. I have reflected. And I take responsibility for the decisions that were mine to make. That is part of leadership. But disagreement should never become personal destruction.”
There is a lot of economic anxiety floating around our waters these days. The BC NDP are juggling a $13.8-billion budget deficit, a $1.5 billion mistake on natural gas revenues, and nasty tariffs. Not one to mince her words, former Liberal premier Christy Clark, said that voters face a choice between the “worst government in BC history” and an opposition headed by an unelectable leader. “She cannot win an election,” Clark said of Findlay. “She is too kooky.”
BC has always had a political spectrum of either the NDP or not the NDP. A recent Angus Reid poll found that 51% of British Columbians “feel like a political orphan” without a party to throw their support behind. That sentiment is shared by over 40% of past BC NDP voters and 55% of those who voted BC Conservative. So, with Premier David Eby coyly playing with a snap election, what are our voting options? None of the above and defer?
