The toxic politics of John Rustad's BC Conservatives

A party built on division is now tearing itself apart

The BC Conservatives under John Rustad's leadership barely made it to Budget 2025. With three BC Conservatives out of caucus and one working on a project to start another party, I imagine the BC NDP have sent a thank you note to Rustad for distracting British Columbians from the fiscal mess the province is in.

Rustad made the right decision to remove Vancouver-Quilchena MLA Dallas Brodie from the BC Conservative caucus for her ignorantly and grotesquely mocking residential school survivors recounting their testimony of abuse "in a child-like 'whining' voice". It is the total failure of Rustad to establish moral boundaries that has led to this implosion.

I sat next to Rustad in the legislative chamber for the Fall 2023 and Spring 2024 sessions. On many of those days Hansard video captures my visceral response to the divisive politics he deployed to take down the BC United Party. Specifically, Rustad's goal was to obstruct Kevin Falcon's political aspirations of becoming Premier. There are plenty of old grudges and other political artefacts there.

The Spring 2024 session was a terrible time for First Nations people in British Columbia as Rustad and Falcon chased each other into the political swamp. As a proud MLA from W̱SÁNEĆ, sitting next to Rustad as he used Indigenous issues as a wedge against the BC NDP for his own political gain, "broke my heart."

Last week, Rustad finally felt compelled to draw a line after a video of Brodie in a podcast interview mocking residential school survivors and publicly criticizing her Indigenous caucus colleague was shared online.

Since her removal, Brodie stated, "the truth is a threat to powerful vested interests in the multi-billion-dollar reconciliation industry." She continues, "politicians like David Eby and John Rustad are willing to sell off British Columbia's wealth and power, transferring it from the public to an elite racial minority—enriching opportunistic lawyers, consultants, and chiefs along the way." There is so much wrong with these statements that it's hard to know where to start.

Nobody should be surprised by Brodie's hateful behaviour as an MLA. Remember back to the election last Fall, when as a candidate, Brodie shared her offensive and misinformed opinion of First Nations leaders and communities, telling them "don't just make Vancouver your dumping ground. Come and take your citizens."

Brodie wasn't Rustad's only candidate with deeply troubling views of First Nations people. Remember Marina Sapozhnikov? On election night she did a long interview with a student from Vancouver Island University where she shared a range of odious opinions including calling First Nations people "savages."

In the video that got her fired from caucus, Brodie describes an unnamed caucus colleague who is Indigenous and "was super angry and went to town and joined the NDP to call me out." There is only one person in the caucus who fits that profile, BC Conservative House Leader Á’a:líya Warbus.

As it turns out, Brodie wasn't the only member of the BC Conservatives who had a problem with Rustad's decision.

Hours after Brodie was fired, Jordan Kealy, MLA for Peace River North, announced he was also leaving the BC Conservatives and going to start his own party. In his post to social media, Kealy is clearly most frustrated with "bullies" and how the party has become a home where "so-called 'Conservatives' would rather throw cheap insults than deal with facts."

Then Tara Armstrong, MLA for Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream, left the BC Conservatives. In her social media post, she states "it is time to break free." She writes, "no one was surprised when David Eby attacked Dallas Brodie for telling the truth about Kamloops. But John Rustad's cowardly decision to stab her in the back revealed just how corrupt he has become."

Armstrong and Kealy's silence on Brodie's vile comments is telling. Instead, they framed Rustad's decision as a betrayal.

While I am grateful that Rustad has taken a stance against the residential school denialism in his party, Rustad should have drawn a line a long time ago. He set this in motion each time he, and his colleague from Abbotsford South, stood in the chamber and deliberately trolled the sewers of social media and their outrage algorithms.

Shame on John Rustad for choosing his ambition for the Premier's Office over integrity, and allowing racism and cruelty to fester in the BC Conservatives under his leadership.