Not everyone at the annual general meeting was happy with the Conservative leader’s proposed changes.
The B.C. Conservative Party annual general meeting had its share of outbursts as delegates gathered for the party’s first convention since a provincial election that saw them form the official Opposition for the first time in nearly 100 years.
Several challenges were launched against the proposed changes to the party’s constitution and board candidates put forward by party leader John Rustad, although every member of his slate ultimately came out on top during Saturdays event, held at the Vancouver Island Conference Centre in Nanaimo.
A handout distributed to delegates accused current president Aisha Estey and co-executive directors Angelo Isidorou and Connor Gibson of revoking the memberships of grassroots activists, parachuting candidates into ridings without consulting local riding associations and brokering “a secret deal with Kevin Falcon” that saw B.C. United fold in some of their candidates and push out existing Conservative nominees.
Despite this, Estey was re-elected as party president with Cranbrook Coun. Wesly Graham elected as her vice-president. Robert McRudden will also return as treasurer and former New Westminster-Coquitlam candidate Ndellie Massey was chosen to serve as party secretary.
All five of the slate’s director-at-large candidates were also successful, including former Conservative candidate John Wilson of Esquimalt-Colwood and former B.C. United candidate Pavneet Singh of Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream.
“Some people have said you’ve got some people on one side of the political spectrum, the other side, and I said this every day during the election campaign. It’s not about just being Conservative. It’s not about being Liberal or NDP or Green. We have to stand for what’s right,” said Rustad in his AGM speech shortly before the results were announced.
“We have to fight for the average everyday person. We have to make sure they are the centre of every decision that is made in British Columbia, and that is what we will continue to fight for as the Conservative Party of British Columbia.”
Another handout slammed the new constitution proposed by the party for changes that would see board elections take place every four years instead of every year and give it more control over finances and candidate selection.
Rustad ultimately backed down on the change to four-year terms for board members, increasing it to every two years instead.
“We can’t be doing this every year. We’ve got 800 delegates-plus here. If you think about the cost, that’s a million dollars-plus to be able to run an AGM. That’s an awful lot for a small party, even a growing party,” he told attendees.
“However, I did hear that four years was too long.”
The proposed changes to the constitution passed despite some misgivings from members, including former Victoria-Beacon Hill candidate Tim Thielmann, about the omnibus nature of the changes and an alleged lack of consultation.
Thielmann had suggested that the members hold off on voting on the changes and have a meeting over Zoom to go over them.
All of the party’s policy proposals also passed with little opposition.
Estey told Postmedia she understands the concerns raised by members and that every party that has grown as quickly as they do is bound to experience “growing pains.”
“A lot of people were here when this party was 100 members, and that wasn’t that long ago, so it’s a lot of growth, really fast, and I can understand how it could be hard to adjust to that, absolutely,” she said.
Many of these policies were lifted directly from the Conservative platform, including promises to immediately remove all sexual orientation and gender identity materials from schools, implement a wait time guarantee for British Columbians suffering from certain conditions such as cancer and introduce strong measures against antisemitism.
Other policies that passed included a commitment to scrap the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act and develop nuclear energy.
Among the consternations raised by members was a call by some for local riding associations to be given more say over party policies and candidate selections.
“I would like to see the party be more accountable. I would like to see it be more transparent. I would like to see the riding associations be more independent,” said Peter Ker, one of the candidates for director-at-large.
In a direct challenge to Rustad, Ker called for a leadership review and said that it should happen at the convention and not wait until the fall when it is scheduled.
He joined former candidates Bryan Breguet and Paul Ratchford in indicating he believes Rustad is not the person to lead the party forward, despite his success in taking the Conservatives from a party that garnered two per cent of the vote in 2020 to winning 44 seats in last year’s election.
Breguet told Postmedia he believes the 2024 election was Rustad’s best chance to bring the Conservatives into government and pointed to the recent divisions within the Conservative caucus over residential schools as an example of how he’s failed to keep disagreements behind closed doors.
“It doesn’t make us look very serious,” he said, adding that he thinks Rustad and his advisers have misread public sentiment in blaming Donald Trump’s tariff threats on the NDP.
Most members and candidates refrained from openly calling for a leadership review, however, with others simply referring to a need for the party to return to the “grassroots.”
Rustad wasn’t the only one to face the heat as four members, including three former MLA candidates, challenged Estey for her position.
This included Thielmann, who was recently fired from his position as the Conservative caucus research chair over a letter he helped draft with 13 MLAs criticizing Surrey-Cloverdale MLA Elenore Sturko for supporting the resignation of Comfort Sakoma-Fadugba from the Vancouver Police Board.