B.C. Conservative Leader Resigns After Seven Months, Setting New Provincial Record For Shortest Gap Between Coronation And Leadership Review
Kerry-Lynne Findlay has resigned as leader of the B.C. Conservative party, a job she held roughly as long as a decent sourdough starter, and the party has responded by announcing it is united, focused, and entirely ready for an election that is three years away.
The B.C. Conservatives now enter their fourth distinct existential phase since 2024, a period during which they went from polling in the low single digits, to nearly forming government, to splintering into a caucus that appears to be organised on the honour system. Members who left to sit as independents have described the experience as liberating. Members who stayed have described it as a leadership vacuum. Both descriptions are being used in fundraising emails.
The leadership contest, when it arrives, will follow the traditional B.C. format. A candidate emerges. The candidate is praised for their authenticity. Six weeks later a 2011 blog post surfaces. The candidate is praised for their resilience. Then a riding association in the Interior issues a statement nobody asked for.
David Eby's NDP, meanwhile, has said almost nothing, which in B.C. politics counts as a sophisticated communications strategy. Why interrupt.
The deepest irony is structural. B.C. spent decades with a two-party system held together by a coalition party named after a highway maintenance philosophy. Now it has a party whose entire organising principle is opposition to the government, and it cannot stay in one piece long enough to oppose anything.
The interim leader has promised stability. Interim leaders always do. It is, technically, the one thing their job title guarantees they cannot deliver.