Ex-B.C. Conservative MLAs say party’s new leader will polarize politics

Elected leader of the B.C. Conservative Party Kerry-Lynne Findlay speaks during leadership election night in Vancouver, on Saturday, May 30, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ethan Cairns

VICTORIA — Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says British Columbia needs the leadership of Kerry-Lynne Findlay, but two former provincial Conservatives say the new leader of their old party will polarize the province.

Poilievre says he hopes Findlay will succeed in making B.C. more affordable and safer, as he congratulated the former member of his caucus for winning the leadership of the Conservative Party of B.C.

He made the statement Monday in Ottawa, after Findlay won over commentator Caroline Elliott on Saturday in the fourth ballot of the leadership race to replace former leader John Rustad.

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Rustad was chased out of office over disputes that led to the removal or departure of five legislators first elected as Conservatives, including Amelia Boultbee and Elenore Sturko, who now sit as Independents.

Boultbee says in an interview that Findlay’s victory shows that part of the party’s base and board wants to take B.C. Conservatives “further and further to the right,” where they want to “engage in Donald Trump-style populism.

Sturko — whom Rustad kicked out of the caucus in September — says in a social media post that Findlay’s election has left a void in the political landscape for those who are looking for an alternative to “NDP incompetence.”

“I feel strongly that British Columbian is best served, when it is represented by a government that values broad perspectives and stays away from polarizing extremes,” she says. “I believe that the majority of British Columbians feel the same.”

Boultbee says the Trump-style of populism is popular with a certain Conservative base, but that is not where most British Columbians want to go.

“There’s a world, in which I might have been able to get behind her, if she had cut out some of the more further-to-the-right stuff,” Boultbee says.

While Boultbee says she would never say never to returning to the party, nobody has reached out to her, and her attention is focused on representing her riding in the Okanagan.

This report by Wolfgang Depner, The Canadian Press, was first published June 1, 2026.