Michael Taube: B.C. Conservatives finally oust leader Rustad in public gong show

During the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD that destroyed three-quarters of the capital city, legend has it that Emperor Nero caused the massive blaze to erupt. Some suspected he had secretly sent out a parade of drunken fools to burn it to the ground in hopes of rebuilding it in his own image. Nero showed a general indifference to what was happening. He played the lyre in his palace, as the story goes, while the flames destroyed Roman art, architecture, and centuries of history.

It led to the famous expression that Nero fiddles while Rome burns.

A similar tale unfolded during the bizarre battle involving the B.C. Conservatives and their embattled leader, John Rustad. In this case, there were far too many fiddlers while the political movement burned at a high temperature.

Rustad was elected as a B.C. Liberal MLA in 2005 and served in two ministerial roles for then-premier Christy Clark. He had a poor working relationship with Clark’s successor, Kevin Falcon, and jumped to the Conservatives in Feb. 2023 citing “irreconcilable differences.”

Most observers assumed that Rustad’s career would end in ignominy.

The B.C. Conservatives had once been a political powerhouse. Founded in 1903, they won the first-ever B.C. election contested by political parties over the Liberals with 46.43 per cent of the popular vote and a small majority (22 of 42 seats). The province’s first two premiers, Richard McBride and William John Bowser, were Conservatives. After a short period out of power, Conservative leader Simon Fraser Tolmie won the 1928 election with 53.3 per cent and 35 out of 48 seats.

This political resurgence was short-lived. B.C., like other parts of Canada and the Western world, suffered during the Great Depression. The net value of production and exports “fell by almost 60 per cent,” according to the Legislative Assembly of B.C. website, and unemployment levels rose to 31 per cent in 1931. Tolmie was forced to set up relief camps while the unemployed were put to work to build roads and facilities, which tore apart his fiscally conservative party at its core.

The badly divided Conservatives didn’t run any candidates in the 1933 election. Some ran as Unionists (Tolmie’s supporters), Non-Partisans (Bowser’s remaining supporters), Independents and Independent Conservatives. Duff Pattullo’s Liberals won 34 of 47 seats and formed government, while the CCF (later NDP) ascended into a major left-wing party and political force. The Conservatives briefly regrouped and were part of a coalition government with the Liberals during the Second World War. They largely fell off the electoral map by the early 1950s. The party won their last provincial seat in an election in 1975, and by-election in 1978.

The Conservatives were therefore a non-entity by the time Rustad hitched his wagon to them. Yet, everything came together in what can only be described as a perfect storm.

The Liberals under Falcon had fallen apart after losing in 2017. They rebranded as BC United in April 2023 in hopes of a fresh start, but polls showed many respondents were unaware of the name change and the connection to the old Liberal brand. David Eby, who became NDP Premier in Nov. 22, 2022, after John Horgan’s resignation due to a cancer diagnosis, was also struggling mightily. His political record included a massive housing crisis, rising crime rates, drug decriminalization, and walking away from a made-in-B.C. carbon tax that was once the NDP’s hallmark.

Rustad took advantage of this situation. He linked his party to federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s immense popularity at the time, and attacked Eby’s leadership with a conservative, free-market-oriented vision. Eight B.C. United MLAs crossed the floor to the Conservatives. Falcon suspended his party’s campaign to prevent vote splitting and endorsed Rustad.

The Conservatives came within three seats of winning the B.C. election in October 2024. It was the party’s best electoral showing in over 72 years. If everything stayed on course, Rustad could have become premier in short order. An accomplishment in Canadian political lore that few could have ever seen coming.

Alas, that moment came and went in slightly over a year’s time.

Rustad, instead of being focused squarely on bringing down the NDP, got involved in party infighting for months. He fired Lindsay Shepherd, the party’s high-profile communications officer, for speaking out about the lack of graves found at a former residential school in Kamloops. Five Conservative MLAs, of which four were women, left the party due to frustration with his leadership. These included now-OneBC leader Dallas Brodie and house leader Tara Armstrong. Rustad’s inability to control his caucus and handle differences of opinion on contentious issues like climate change, land claims, and transgender athletes turned off party members and MLAs alike.

The party became so fed up with Rustad that 20 Conservative MLAs called for his resignation on Dec. 3. The board of directors even issued a press release that claimed he was “professionally incapacitated” and had been “removed” and replaced by an interim leader, Trevor Halford. Within an hour, Rustad pushed back and said he was still in charge in a now-deleted X post. That changed the next day. “I will be remaining an MLA and carrying out the work that needs to be done with regard to representing my riding of Nechako Lakes,” Rustad said. “It’s been a great honour building this party, taking this thing from where it was, and bringing the Conservative Party back to life in this province.”

This gong show only served to weaken the Conservatives and strengthen the NDP. This could lead to further divisions on B.C.’s right and could result in more right-leaning parties and movements being created out of frustration. The anti-NDP vote could be chopped up for several elections, too. A strong leader, be it Halford or otherwise, needs to right the Conservative ship as quickly as possible.

What a mess. Nero and Eby must be laughing right now.

National Post