John Rustad resigned as leader of the BC Conservative Party Thursday, a day after he lost the support of 20 members of his caucus.CHAD HIPOLITO/The Canadian Press
One of the more infamous scenes in the movie sketch comedy Monty Python and the Holy Grail involved a sword fight between King Arthur and the Black Knight.
Almost immediately, things do not go well for the Black Knight. He quickly loses a limb, then another. Despite his losses he defiantly fights on: “Just a flesh wound … I’m invincible.” Eventually, he is completely incapacitated, reduced to just his torso. Sitting on the ground with no sword, he insists: “I’ll bite your legs off.”
I was reminded of this episode this week as John Rustad bravely tried to hang on to his job as leader of the BC Conservative Party while suffering one humiliating, damaging blow after another – all the while insisting things were just fine and that he intended to carry on as normal.
This, after 20 of the 39 members of his caucus sent a letter to the party board, indicating they’d lost confidence in Mr. Rustad’s leadership. This, after the party’s board deemed the leader “professionally incapacitated” and informed him that the caucus had elected an interim leader, MLA Trevor Halford.
So, one would have thought, that was it for Mr. Rustad – finally. But no.
Mr. Rustad insisted he would hang on. He had survived previous internal tempests and would survive this one. Just a flesh wound. But alas, he couldn’t overcome gravity – the sheer force of opposition bearing down on him. And on Thursday he finally, mercifully, called it quits.
He could fight on no longer.
John Rustad resigns as leader of BC Conservatives after caucus revolt
What does this mean for B.C. politics? In the short term, it just means more turmoil, more uncertainty. It means a leadership race for the Conservatives, the details of which are yet to come. But will it be an end to all the drama? I’m not so certain.
It first needs to be acknowledged what Mr. Rustad had achieved to even allow this coup to take place. He single-handedly revived the moribund Conservative Party of B.C., leading them from zero seats to 44 in the last election. He came within a hair’s breadth of forming government. But after that, his leadership almost immediately came under attack. Five members of his caucus left or were expelled for various reasons. It didn’t stop the unrest.
He somehow survived a leadership review in September, although less than 20 per cent of party members voted. There seemed to be daily leaks coming out of his caucus, signalling deep internal dissent.
It should be noted that the BC Conservatives ultimately comprise the old coalition that the Social Credit Party kept together to stay in power for decades, one later embraced by the BC Liberals. It is a melding of centrists and conservatives. Often it was an uneasy bond but strong leaders like W.A.C. Bennett and Bill Bennett (Social Credit) and later Gordon Campbell (Liberal) kept it together.
Mr. Rustad never demonstrated the same ability to manage the disparate viewpoints inherent in such an unlikely union.
For the Conservatives, it’s been an uneasy relationship from the start, with the more liberal-minded among the MLAs increasingly uncomfortable with the populists, culture warriors and conspiracy theorists on the right who were sitting at the same table.
For the new leader, whoever that is, whenever he or she is chosen, the challenge to keep a group with such disparate ideological viewpoints together will be no less great. Neither will the responsibility the party has to the province.
NDP Premier David Eby has not encountered the type of fierce, creditable opposition his government should be facing at such a perilous time in the province’s history. There are critical issues that should be in the crosshairs of a cohesive opposition, such as the new pipeline to the coast that’s being considered.
So these developments within the Conservatives have significant implications for Mr. Eby.
Many of his policies have been extremely unpopular with the public. His experiment to decriminalize drugs was a crashing failure. The comfortable financial situation left behind by Mr. Eby’s predecessor, the late John Horgan, has been annihilated. Debt has been racked up at historic rates with no plausible plan to come to grips with it.
I would venture to say that the majority of the public in B.C. want a moderate government, one that is perhaps socially liberal but fiscally conservative. It is not interested in culture wars. People are interested in cheaper groceries, cheaper housing, cheaper everything.
If the Conservatives can find a leader who can bring their fractious caucus together – perhaps even lure back some of those who left – and lead in a calm, mature, measured way, then they could be looking at a very bright future.