New leader of the B.C. Conservative Party Kerry-Lynne Findlay during the leadership election night in Vancouver on Saturday.ETHAN CAIRNS/The Canadian Press
The B.C. Conservative Party has selected a new leader, Kerry-Lynne Findlay, who promises to imprint the party with a clear conservative brand after it spent two years of muddling through an identity crisis.
“Faith, family and freedom, that’s what it’s all about,” Ms. Findlay, who does not have a seat in the legislature, said in her victory speech on Saturday night.
While the party label is old, the party she is taking over is not. The Conservatives – B.C.’s Official Opposition – almost won the 2024 provincial election with a mix of veterans from the former B.C. Liberal Party and a large cohort of political rookies.
Kerry-Lynne Findlay wins BC Conservatives leadership race
That mix, in a caucus that had been promised freedom of speech, quickly led to public conflicts that resulted in five MLAs either being fired or quitting to sit as Independents.
Ms. Findlay said her first priority is uniting the party.
“Mine is a grand vision of fundamental change,” Ms. Findlay said in her acceptance speech to about 1,000 party members.
“We can be a powerhouse in our nation, a powerhouse no longer denied by eastern and global elites, predatory foreign nations and our own Constitution.”
The leadership race was triggered by the resignation six months ago of John Rustad, who was forced out by his caucus and the party executive.
Ms. Findlay met with most of her 39-member caucus on Sunday in Vancouver. She emerged to declare they had had a “very good meeting” and that the caucus was “unified to move forward into the future.” She said she would be having one-on-one meetings with each MLA.
Their new leader has said she wants to seek a seat in the legislature quickly, which means she will be looking for one of the MLAs to resign their seat.
Absent from the gathering was Mr. Rustad, who had earlier indicated he would consider giving up his seat for the new leader. Mr. Rustad said Sunday he would speak to Ms. Findlay directly in the “near future.”
Ms. Findlay on Saturday. She says her first priority is uniting the B.C. Conservative Party.ETHAN CAIRNS/The Canadian Press
The leadership race presented the Conservatives with an opportunity for a fresh start at a time when their primary opponent, the NDP, is on the ropes, with polls showing plunging popularity.
The NDP government, holding a one-seat majority, has been mired in troubles in recent months, with a record deficit and a backlash over its efforts to move forward with reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.
Ms. Findlay’s campaign focused on those weaknesses. A Conservative government, she promised, would tear up the province’s keystone reconciliation law, the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act.
On Sunday, she said free votes on matters of conscience are “part of the conservative makeup.”
“These are things in my collaborative approach I like to decide with caucus, so we will have those discussions.”
Her victory will leave room for another more moderate centre-right party in B.C., said Independent MLA Elenore Sturko, a former Conservative. “The results of last night’s BC Conservative leadership race have left a void in the political landscape for those who are looking for an alternative to NDP incompetence,” she wrote Sunday in a social media post on X.
About 25,000 Conservative members voted in the leadership race. The five candidates on the ballot offered a range from centrists who promised to appeal to the broad centre-right in British Columbia, to those who offered a strict conservative vision.
Ms. Findlay is a lawyer and former minister of national revenue under then prime minister Stephen Harper. Her husband, Brent Chapman, is already a member of the B.C. Conservative caucus. Mr. Chapman was elected in Surrey South by a wide margin in 2024 after apologizing for remarks in which he described Palestinian children as “inbred walking, talking, breathing time bombs.”
During the leadership contest, Ms. Findlay attacked another contender, MLA Peter Milobar, over the fact that his wife is Indigenous, suggesting that puts him in a conflict of interest.
Mr. Milobar, a former B.C. Liberal, placed last in the race, and refused to comment Sunday on his future with the caucus. Ms. Findlay said she had been speaking with him.
“We’re looking forward to working together.”
The provincial Conservative Party was moribund three years ago when Mr. Rustad, a former B.C. Liberal cabinet minister, took over. The party was the right brand at the right time: In the 2024 election, Mr. Rustad helped push the former B.C. Liberal Party out of the field and he came just one seat short of forming government.