Three former BC Conservative MLAs have announced Monday that they will sit as independents in the provincial legislature.
Conservative Leader John Rustad expelled Dallas Brodie from the party on Friday citing “her decision to publicly mock and belittle testimony from former residential school students.”
MLAs Jordan Kealy and Tara Arsmtrong subsequently quit the party saying they had lost confidence in Rustad and that he had “abandoned the truth.”
On Monday, the trio spoke to media outside the legislature, where Armstrong said Rustad had “caved to the woke liberals who have infiltrated the party.”
“No one was surprised when (Premier) David Eby attacked Dallas Brodie for telling the truth about Kamloops, but John Rustad’s cowardly decision to stab her in the back revealed just how corrupt he has become,” the Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream MLA said.
The rift in the Conservative caucus opened in February Brodie wrote a social media post stating “zero” bodies had been confirmed at the site of the former Kamloops residential school.
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While Brodie refused to take the post down when asked by Rustad, he maintained that her ejection was a result of her subsequent appearance on a podcast where she performed a high-pitched imitation of Indigenous survivors talking about their “truths.”
“I’m standing here for the truth, I’m standing up for British Columbians, I love British Columbians, and I’m standing here doing the job I was sent here to do by the constituents of Vancouver-Quilchena, who wanted me to come here and be a person of integrity,” Brodie said Monday.
The trio said they would sit as independents for the time being but are exploring their options for possible next steps, including banding together under an existing party banner or starting a new party.
“It’s clearly a toxic environment and we will promote and help anybody that do want to leave the party,” added Kealy, who represents the riding of Peace River North.
Sitting as a party would give the group the right to ask daily questions in question period, a budget for staff and pay hikes.
The leader, whip and caucus chair of the third party in the legislature are each eligible for a $11,950 annual salary bump.
The defections have left Rustad playing defence, with some other members of his caucus yet to rule out quitting as well.
“It will be very interesting to see if other conservatives defect to join these dissidents,” University of the Fraser Valley political scientist Hamish Telford said.
“If they decided to form themselves as a political party they would have official standing in the legislature with one more seat than the Greens. And of course, if they are joined by others it will be even a bigger force, and the centre-right, which people on the centre-right were hoping not to have divided will be, in fact, divided.”
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