B.C. Conservative leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay has called a caucus meeting after issuing a statement saying she has no plans to step aside amid a wave of defections and resignations. On Thursday evening, two MLAs confirmed to CTV News that Findlay had called a caucus meeting for Friday at 11 a.m. The leader has apparently told the remaining caucus members there will be a “special announcement” at the gathering. Earlier in the day, Findlay issued a lengthy statement that included her intention to continue as leader and her plan to unite the party. “I was elected to lead this party, and I intend to lead it with determination, with humility and with the experience to know that strong leaders listen, learn and make changes when changes are needed,” the statement read, in part. “Now is the time to come together and show British Columbians what a strong, united alternative can deliver,” the statement continued. Nine MLAs have left the B.C. Conservatives this month—overwhelmingly citing the leader as a key reason. Meanwhile, Findlay’s chief of staff, Chris Delaney, resign Wednesday. The party’s director of operations Apollo Chung was fired a week earlier. Premier David Eby admitted Thursday that the option of calling an early election this fall or spring isn’t off the table. “It’s an incredibly volatile time. I won’t rule anything out,” Eby told reporters. The premier’s acknowledgement comes as no surprise to observers of provincial politics. “I would think that there are a lot of people internal to the NDP clamouring to take advantage of this situation,” said Hamish Telford, political scientist at the University of the Fraser Valley. Findlay won the leadership in a close vote by the party’s members on May 30. Since then, she’s alienated moderates in her party and seen a drop in the polls and fundraising—triggering many to look for a new option to lead a free enterprise coalition against the NDP. Among those disaffected moderates have turned to is former B.C. Liberal finance minister Mike de Jong, who says he’s been asked to run in an upcoming byelection against Findlay or head up a new rival party—both suggestions he’s declined. “Hundreds of people are approaching, look, an old warhorse like me, who’s been put out to pasture, and they’re saying, ‘Look, we’re not comfortable with the present alignment,” said de Jong Thursday. Meanwhile, Dallas Brodie—who was kicked out of the B.C. Conservatives by former leader John Rustad—announced online Wednesday that she plans to run candidates for her OneBC party across the province in the next election. “Many conservative-thinking, common sense people in this province see OneBC as a safety valve if the B.C. Cons lose their way,” Brodie told CTV News in a statement Thursday. A caucus meeting and news conference that were scheduled for Monday were both called off after Eby called the byelection for Abbotsford-Mission where Findlay is running in hopes of securing a seat in the legislature.
