Why John Rustad Isn’t Going Away

Don’t bet on John Rustad going away any time soon, despite the B.C. Conservative party chaos and his leadership failures.

Rustad has lost five MLAs in eight months and resorted to desperate tactics like searching phones to identify dissidents.

Last week the party’s management committee — the directors responsible for day-to-day operations — asked Rustad to resign so a leadership contest could be held.

And this week an Angus Reid poll found 48 per cent of the people who voted Conservative in last October’s election think he should resign.

But Rustad says no. He points out, rightly, that the party constitution leaves members and the caucus with no way to oust him until the next leadership review, after the provincial election scheduled for the fall of 2028.

And Rustad notes, also correctly, that he survived the leadership review required after last fall’s election with 71 per cent support.

He doesn’t note that review was marked by credible allegations of membership fraud, with 2,000 new memberships issued on the same day, apparently to boost Rustad’s support. (The memberships were cancelled after an internal investigation.)

Or that it raised questions about Conservative support. The party claimed about 9,000 members at the start of the leadership review. But less than 15 per cent of them voted, for an average turnout of 14 members per riding.

Despite all that, there’s no reason to think Rustad’s departure is imminent.

First, there are no obvious contenders to replace him. Usually when leaders are on the edge, rivals are ready to give them a push. But there are no high-profile candidates to replace Rustad. (Being Conservative Party of BC leader is not an appealing job at this point.)

And any other leader would face most of the same issues (though perhaps more competently).

The Conservatives aren’t a real political party, with riding associations and shared polices and principles. They were cobbled together because BC United Leader Kevin Falcon, pressured by powerful business interests, unilaterally shut down his party’s campaign and fired all the candidates.

The result was that Conservative election candidates included eight former BC Liberals alongside extreme right-wing social conservatives. It couldn’t last, and no leader could likely have kept them together after the election.

The Angus Reid poll highlighted the inherent conflict. It found that 70 per cent of respondents who voted Conservative in the election thought the party was in the “right place politically,” with 14 per cent thinking that it was too right and 16 per cent that it was too left. (The numbers exclude those who didn’t have an opinion.)

If the Conservatives move to appease one faction, they alienate the other.

Rustad is also fortunate in that there are no credible rival parties offering a possible alternative for MLAs and supporters who choose to leave the Conservatives.

OneBC, the party created by Dallas Brodie and Tara Armstrong after Rustad booted Brodie from caucus for mocking residential school survivors, has failed to attract any other MLAs from the Conservatives in almost five months.

Unsurprising, as it has chosen to embrace fringe status, rejecting the reality of Indigenous legal rights and denying the existence of trans people. The party, which gets about $660,000 from taxpayers to support its two-person caucus, has chosen to divert a chunk of that money to finance a “feature-length documentary” attacking Indigenous rights and promoting residential school denialism.

OneBC support was reported at five per cent in the Angus Reid poll, and one per cent in an earlier Research Co. poll.

On the other flank, CentreBC, the party founded by former BC Liberal Karin Kirkpatrick, had three per cent in similar support.

Conservative supporters may be frustrated by the party’s stumbles. But they have nowhere to go.

Rustad is his own worst enemy. Keeping the coalition of convenience together was always going to be difficult to impossible.

But actions like demanding that MLAs allow their phones to be searched and suggesting that departing MLA Amelia Boultbee had mental health issues undermine any claims to leadership.

Still, it seems unlikely Rustad will be leaving any time soon.

Which is good news indeed for Premier David Eby and the NDP government.