BC Conservative Leader John Rustad has survived an internal party leadership review, winning 70.66 per cent support amongst party supporters. This vote came less than a year after Rustad took his party from virtually nowhere to within a few seats of forming government.
This is a level of support that most observers feel will allow him to continue, at least for now. However, it will likely not be sufficient to quell the internal strife within his party, as evidenced by Rustad’s surprising move yesterday to remove popular Surrey-Cloverdale MLA Elenore Sturko.
The BC Conservative Party Constitution calls for a leadership review after every provincial election. Over the summer, a vote amongst party members was held in each constituency, culminating in the total provincial result released yesterday.
As witnessed in similar leadership reviews in other provinces, most observers believe that achieving 70 per cent or greater generally allows a leader to continue serving in that role. But that level of support doesn’t always mean the leadership question is resolved.
Making Rustad’s position more difficult is the relative organizational weakness of his party. Only about 1,200 members participated in the entire process, for an average of 13 members in each of 93 constituencies. This on-the-ground weakness, coupled with the party’s ongoing financial troubles, underscores the difficult position that the BC Conservatives find themselves in.
Sturko’s removal comes after the exit of three other MLAs earlier this year, with two of them going on to form their own right-of-centre party, OneBC.
Elenore Sturko was first elected as a BC United Party MLA and has established a reputation as a strong advocate for criminal justice reform and an outspoken critic of the government’s handling of the opioid epidemic. As a former RCMP Officer and veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces, Sturko brought considerable experience to these files.
What This Means
The beneficiary of all this strife within the Opposition benches is undoubtedly Premier David Eby and the New Democrats.
A long-standing political truism in British Columbia is that when the non-NDP vote is split amongst more than one centre-right conservative party, the path to victory for the NDP becomes much easier.
Despite some challenging issues facing British Columbia that have contributed to the premier’s approval rating dropping to 41 per cent according to Angus Reid, the disarray on the right provides the NDP government stability, despite its narrow majority in the BC Legislature.
As for Sturko, it remains to be seen if she can convince any other Conservative MLAs to join her.
If she were to turn one other MLA, the duo could achieve party status, which would allow them to ask questions in the Legislature and receive a larger Legislative budget for staff.
It is also noteworthy that Sturko’s former colleague, Karin Kirkpatrick, has formed a party known as Centre BC as a home for centre-right voters uncomfortable with the BC Conservative Party’s positions on a variety of social issues.
It remains to be seen if this new, fledgling party becomes a home for Sturko, but that scenario cannot be ruled out.
While this is a fluid situation, one thing is certain. There remain deep divisions on the centre-right coalition in BC that has historically dominated BC politics.
That is good news for Eby and bad news for Rustad.