Adam Pankratz: Eby's byelection call traps Conservatives on sinking ship

On Monday, the cascade of MLAs fleeing Kerry-Lynne Findlay’s B.C. Conservative party continued with the resignation of A’a:liya Warbus. This brings the total refugees from Findlay’s doomed political cruise to seven over the past two weeks. It’s now clear that the party has no future with her as leader.

In a perfect world, she would resign immediately before her catastrophic time as leader fully sinks British Columbia’s Conservatives, if she hasn’t already condemned them to the political wilderness and the province to more miserable years under Premier David Eby’s leadership. The world, however, isn’t perfect and, ironically, it’s Eby who has found a way to prolong Findlay’s leadership by at least four more weeks.

By immediately calling a byelection for a seat recently vacated for Findlay to run for (she is not currently a member of B.C.’s legislative assembly), he has ensured that her circus will remain in town at least until the end of September.

Warbus’ resignation is uniquely damning. Following Eby’s byelection call on Sunday, it became clear that Findlay would remain leader until at least Sept. 27 — something that was not at all clear even last week, as the Conservatives leaving caucus went from a trickle to a waterfall. With the byelection now called, Findlay is there until it’s over.

As such, Warbus’ resignation on Monday carries with it an extra sting: her departure wasn’t merely calculated to bring about Findlay’s downfall (though it may well contribute to that), it was an expression of the fact that even four more weeks of being linked to Findlay was too much for Warbus to bear. Warbus sees that the house is on fire and has no interest in getting torched.

When Findlay won the Conservative leadership at the end of May, it was described by many as a “political earthquake,” as it signalled a shift to the right, away from the broader centre-right coalition the B.C. Conservatives had become following its merger with B.C. United (formerly the B.C. Liberals) ahead of the 2024 election.

That broad Conservative coalition under John Rustad came within a whisker of winning that election, taking 44 seats and 43 per cent of the popular vote. In the previous election under their fringe incarnation, the Conservatives took zero seats and 1.9 per cent of the vote. The “political earthquake” that Findlay now represents is set up to hand Eby another election victory.

There has also been turmoil among Conservative staffers. Perhaps most emblematic of the embarrassing fiasco that Findlay’s leadership has been is Apollo Chung, a former member of the separatist Republican Party of Alberta.

Last Wednesday, recordings were released in which a political staffer allegedly said that he doesn’t “care about … saving the province,” that “white people are, like, crazy” and that he has “the leader in our hands.” The recordings continued with dubious comments about the staffer’s plans for funds raised by the party, saying he would go in and “steal everything.”

Though nothing has been officially confirmed, Chung was fired nearly immediately following the release of the recordings, and both Chung and Findlay have refused to comment on the matter.

Eby has pulled a smart political move by essentially forcing the Conservatives to remain with Findlay as leader until the end of September, and possibly beyond if she manages to win the byelection. The Conservatives now find themselves in the unfortunate position of knowing their interests are best served if their leader loses and can be jettisoned cleanly on the grounds that she can’t even win a byelection.

Nevertheless, expect further resignations to come, with some no doubt planned to be close to the byelection date, so as to embarrass Findlay. If she finds a way to hang on, it would be cataclysmic for B.C.’s Conservative party.

National Post