The Current - Confusion for BC Cons

Episode Date: December 4, 2025

The leader of the BC Conservatives, John Rustad says he's not going anywhere. His party says they've voted in a new leader and Rustad is out. We hear from Rob Shaw about a very confusing day in British Columbia politics.

This ascent isn't for everyone. You need grit to climb this high this often. You've got to be an underdog that always over-delivers. You've got to be 6,500 hospital staff, 1,000 doctors, all doing so much with so little. You've got to be Scarborough. Defined by our uphill battle and always striving towards new heights. And you can help us keep climbing.

Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. And a reminder, this segment was recorded this morning. So I'm currently still the leader of the party. Nothing has changed since we discussed this this morning. That's the British Columbia Conservative Party leader, John Rustad, speaking yesterday. His party says he's out.

They've moved on. They thanked him for his service. They picked a new interim leader. But John Rustad, well, he says he's not going any. anywhere, and it sounds like he wasn't alone in his confusion. There are some members of his own party, heading into question period wondering the same. Here's MLA's Judy Tour and Christina Lohen. We asked her your party.

Who's the leader of... John Restead. Absolutely. You're saying that like it's obvious, but your party issued a release saying that Trevor Halford had been appointed the interview. I don't know anything about that. So is your party splintered in half? Was there a vote today?

No, there wasn't. No, I wasn't part of any vote. It's not in that meeting. So some MLA's had a vote, but not all? That is what I'm hearing. So only the opposition, only the ones opposed to Russ said, had a vote. I have no idea. It's confusing to me.

John Restad. Rob Shaw is the host of the podcast Political Capital Capital. He's a reporter with Czech News in Victoria. Rob, good morning. Good morning. This is not a trick question, but it is a tricky question. Who currently is in charge of BC's official opposition? well according to the board of the bc conservative party and most of the caucus it is new

interim leader trevor halford but as you heard there the way all this unfolded was just so messy that there was there was a lot of confusion for a little while there but it was kind of like watching a coup occur but sort of stalled halfway you know and so the person is still back in the presidential palace but has lost all of the sort of powers of the office. And yes, John Rustad had the physical keys to the opposition leader's office, but he doesn't have the mandate of the people that he is supposed to lead in that caucus. And that's the weird situation we're in. Those MLAs perhaps are not the only ones who are confused by what unfolded yesterday. Can you walk us through that slow motion coup? Yes. Well, 20 members.

of the caucus, and there's 39 members in total, but 20 of them got together and signed a declaration that they no longer had confidence in him, and they gave it to a lawyer who sent it to the party and said, these people want to remain anonymous because they're fearful of Rustad coming after them. That leaked publicly, and it caused an emergency caucus meeting by the BC Conservatives. Now, normally everyone comes to a caucus meeting, but Rustad refused to recognize that it was even happening and told his supporters it's not a real meeting. But nonetheless, more than 30 people of the 39 member caucus had a meeting. And they had a vote in that meeting to pick a new leader, an interim leader, Trevor Howford. And that's why you hear some MLA saying, I don't know anything

about a meeting. They didn't go because Restad told them it wasn't a real meeting. So once the interim leader is selected in this quasi meeting, that goes back to the party. The party has an emergency board meeting, and it looks at the Constitution and says, well, we can't actually get rid of him. Only members of the party in a leadership vote can get rid of the leader, and he passed a leadership vote in the summer, was 70%. So they took the term, there's a term in there that a leader can only go if he dies or is incapacitated. And they took the term incapacitated, and they passed the motion to redefine it to say that you're incapacitated if you don't have support of caucus. And then they designated a term called professional incapacitation, which I'm sure people are

going to love, like you're going to use that with your colleagues at the office. You look like you're professionally incapacitated today. And they deemed him professionally incapacitated and removed him from office in a vote of the board. So that all happens. But as you can hear, some people are out of the loop in this. They don't think it's legitimate. And suddenly the new interim leader emerges. They all go into the chamber. But Rustad, he just walks out of of his office, comes into the house, sits in the leader's chair, pretends like nothing's happened. Nothing to see here.

Nothing to see here. It's sheer force of will. And I don't think, I've been doing politics here for 18 years. I've never seen that happen because most people in this situation quit. And they say either for the good of the party or to avoid the humiliation of what occurred in that day. But, you know, what happens if they won't quit? That's really what played out.

So on social media, John Rustad says, these are his. words, I have not resigned. I have not been removed. And I'm not going anywhere, which seems to be a key phrase, because as we say, when people often say that they're not going anywhere, chances are they are about to go somewhere. Did he know that the knife was coming? Well, the knives have been coming for him, you know, in short stabs to carry that to metaphor out for a while. And what he's been doing behind the scenes is he's been refusing to let caucus have a vote on his leadership. And he's said, well, that's, I don't care what you think. The party members gave me my mandate in the summer. And that's frustrated caucus. And so it's moved around him and sort of bypassed him.

And he knew what was happening yesterday. And I was talking to someone who could tell that he was reading the motions of the party board to remove him, because it was an electronic meeting. John Rustad's name would pop up and say he read this. But he didn't do it. anything to stop it because he didn't think it was real. And technically, maybe he might be right in a weird sense, but politics is about leading people and having kind of confidence in a team. You know, you aren't designated by God to lead. You are leading a group of people. They've picked you as one of the team. And so that's really where he's at. He's just lost the people. He's just lost the functional will of the majority of the people there. And despite some

folks still hanging on to him. It's a small number in a larger group. He's the leader of the official, or ostensibly, the leader of the official opposition in your province. He's also had a wild year, right? I mean, it does not be smooth sailing. Just describe the turbulence, a mixed metaphor, but describe the turbulence that John Rustad has led his party through. Well, I can carry the metaphor because he's always described as building the airplane well in the air and hitting the turbulence. But two years ago, basically his party didn't exist. He picked it up. He got it to within almost defeating the NDP government in the last

election. One seat would have cost the NDP its majority. And then immediately, you know, the knives come out. In politics these days, you don't get a long runway to carry the airplane metaphor even further if you don't win. And so just little things chipping away, people coming for them. And this built up that frustration to eventually this move here. You know, it's a little bit like we play out federally with a party leader's Pierre Polly of, although he has held it off and remains, not everyone is

able to, you know, land the plane safely in the Hudson. He had all, nicely done, he had all of this, I mean, there's questions about party unity who was behind him, whether people would stay behind him, wasn't there an investigation

to people's phones, what was on people's phones as well to see whether there was plotting and people saying untowings, things about him. Can he, if he stays, can he hold the party together? No, no, you can't. I think that, I think that's just passed. But the question is, can anyone hold the party together? Because this is a rag tag group of very far-right people and also some moderate centrist liberals that used to exist here in a party called the BC Liberals. And that is the real question is, yes, maybe they get rid of John Rustad. But who can bridge this,

we call it the kind of center-right free enterprise kind of gap? here and the federal liberals deal with that too right the people in the federal uh sorry the federal liberals and the federal conservatives how do you keep a team together um that's that's the main challenge the next person's going to have because it is a wild team in bc you can imagine david eby the premier of british columbia smiling this morning i there's a little cartoon out here of eby standing in front of the legislature and behind him all the mLAs are clowns in clown cars in a clown college, and he says, go ahead, vote for someone else. And that's pretty much, it's pretty much the political situation in BC. Is it true that last night, the party that is

in the midst of all of this turmoil and dysfunction, it was scheduled to have its Christmas party? Is that correct? Well, not only that, but the night before, when some of these MLAs wanted a emergency caucus meeting, there was a rib fest and a gingerbread house. Instead, like a contest that the party had, Rustad organized. And yes, last night after all this, there was a Christmas party, probably the most awkward Christmas party in the history of Christmas party. How do you think that went? Well, some people went for the staff, you know, to sort of give them because they don't know what's going on, right? And then other people got the heck out of dodge as fast as possible. So I don't know if the Christmas cheer was in full swing, but I'm sure

if someone spiked the punch, they probably could have made a night out of it. Somebody might have needed a drink after all of this. it's quite a story. We'll be watching. Thank you very much. Okay. Thanks. Rob Shaw is the host of the podcast Political Capital. He's also a reporter with Czech News in Victoria. This has been the current podcast. You can hear our show Monday to Friday on CBC Radio 1 at 8.30 a.m. at all time zones. You can also listen online at cbc.ca.ca slash the current or on the CBC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening.

For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca slash podcasts.