Actual leader of the B.C. Conservatives up in the air — and so are their next moves

Wednesday was the final day the B.C. legislature was in session for 2025 — and it sure delivered a season finale.

After months of MLAs either leaving his party or being removed from it, now disputed Opposition Leader John Rustad appeared cornered. The B.C. Conservative Party’s board said that because a majority of Rustad's caucus had voted to remove him, he was “professionally incapacitated” and therefore removed as leader.

It led to a dramatic afternoon of duelling scrums in the legislature between supporters of Rustad and Trevor Halford, the Surrey-White Rock MLA that the Conservative Party board said had been installed as interim leader.

With both sides claiming legitimacy — but with the party’s board, caucus and website seemingly supporting Halford — a defiant Rustad said the party had no legal standing to remove him.

“Nothing has changed,” said Rustad, later tweeting “a political party’s board can throw around whatever creative terminology they like, 'professional incapacitation'? Give me a break.”

It may have sparked a day of comparisons to antipopes, Monty Python’s Black Knight, and slow-motion coups, but it appeared to conclude on Wednesday night with no clarity.

With the legislature adjourned for the session, there was no pressing need for Speaker Raj Chouhan to resolve the question of who would be recognized as Opposition Leader inside the legislature.

But regardless of how the dramatic standoff concludes, party members will likely keep talking about this season’s buzzy finale — and what the long-term arc of next season could look like.

According to multiple sources, the 20 MLAs who allegedly called for Rustad’s removal don’t fit neatly into one box.

The Conservative Party caucus is a mix of people associated with establishment B.C. United Party that preceded them as the official opposition, populist activists dominant in the party prior to their de facto takeover of B.C. United, longtime community leaders, political rookies, and everything in between.

“It's a very unruly caucus, a very diverse coalition of people,” said Fraser Valley University political scientist Hamish Telford.

“I think he tried to play the ends against the middle, evidently to no avail. And which brings us to today.”

Many people who commented on the day’s dramatic twists said Rustad lost many of his MLAs not through political ideas or any one act, but through a cumulative failure of political leadership.

“It wasn't one wing of the party that he lost support from. It was from all over the place,” said Amelia Boultbee, one of five MLAs elected under the Conservative Party who, prior to Wednesday, had either left or been removed from the party after feuds with Rustad.