Vaughn Palmer: B.C. Conservative leader John Rustad cleans house — sort of

Vaughn Palmer: Conservative supporters must ask themselves if there’s more potentially damaging opposition research to come

Get the latest from Vaughn Palmer straight to your inbox

Published Sep 04, 2024  •  4 minute read

Conservative Party of B.C. leader John Rustad. Photo by Jason Payne /PNG

VICTORIA — B.C. Conservative leader John Rustad twice endorsed Racheal Weber as one of his candidates, before finally abandoning her this week as a political liability.

Rustad’s first endorsement was a year ago. Weber, the then-chair of the school board in Prince George, was named as the Conservative candidate in one of the city’s three constituencies.

“Her experience in a leadership role on her community’s school board has given her the tools to be a great MLA and a leader in a Conservative government,” said Rustad in a news release.

Article content

The second test of the leader’s loyalty toward Weber emerged this year, when B.C. United ridiculed her candidacy over some social media posts.

One portrayed cell towers for 5G wireless service as “genocidal” weapons and a cause of COVID. Another insinuated that “microchips, no cash/just plastic, marshall (sic) law, and government dependency/control” could be signs of the pending arrival of “the anti-Christ.”

Earlier in the electoral cycle, such revelations had prompted Rustad to dump several candidates. This time, he decided not to award any more trophies to his opponents.

“I’m not going to allow cancel culture to take root in this province,” he told CKPG radio in Prince George earlier this month. “I think it has done too much damage. It has been a significant part of the left wing’s tools in terms of attacking people and getting away from the real issues that are out there, such as the overdoses we’ve been seeing, safer supply and decriminalization, and the damage that has done.”

That didn’t prevent B.C. United from taking one more crack at the Weber candidacy. At a news event late last month, they handed out tinfoil hats in honour of the Prince George crackpot.

Article content

Article content

Those tin hats may be a collectors item in future years as a relic of the United party’s turn in the political arena.

United failed to establish its own presence in the opinion polls and devoted its dwindling resources to a dog-in-the-manger drive to pull down the Conservatives.

Still, United’s last gasp research could have claimed the hapless Weber as a victim.

When United leader Kevin Falcon agreed to suspend the operations of his party, Rustad agreed to revisit the Conservative candidate line-up to strengthen it.

Rustad did so by adding several of the more credible United MLAs and candidates as Conservatives.

He also seized the opportunity to cut Weber loose. “There goes the anti-anti-Christ vote,” joked one wag.

More seriously, Conservative supporters must ask themselves if there’s more to come.

In the course of selling out his party, Falcon is said to have handed over an estimated 200 pages of potentially damaging research accumulated by United staffers on the Conservative candidates.

The New Democrats have assembled their own dossiers. Already they are targeting Bryan Breguet, the Conservative candidate in Vancouver-Langara for his obnoxious and sexist postings on social media.

Article content

Breguet, the head of the economics department at Langara College, tried to placate the critics by claiming many of his posts “were just sarcastic or outright jokes.”

He added: “I realize some of my posts have come across as derogatory or offensive. That was never my intention, and I apologize to anyone who perceived them that way.

“I’m naturally not the most politically correct person,” he continued. “But people are right to expect better from people who run for office. I’ll be better. That’s a promise.”

Weber, ousted in Prince George, says the Conservatives have sold out to United and she vowed to run as an independent.

So will some of the United MLAs and nominees who did not make the cut with Rustad. Others chose to see the proverbial writing on the wall and announce their retirement.

Several deserved better than such rough treatment at the last minute. The longer-serving ones will at least have their MLA pensions and the certain knowledge that they were around long enough to make a difference to their communities.

I’m thinking, for example, of Jackie Tegart, and her long, often lonely crusade to remind the provincial and federal governments of their failure to “be there” for Lytton when it was destroyed by fire three years ago.

Article content

Politics can be a rough business, especially at the party level. I was reminded of that the morning after the United takedown, when I ran into Carole James, the former NDP leader and finance minister.

Straightaway, she expressed regret for what happened to Shirley Bond. Twenty-three years an MLA. Sixteen years in cabinet. A year as leader of the Opposition. And stranded on a rock overnight by her own party and leader.

James, of course, knew first-hand the ruthlessness of party politics. She was pushed out of the leadership by her own party in 2010. But because she believed in the cause, she swallowed the humiliation and survived to fight another day.

Not everyone sidelined by this week’s events will have that inclination or opportunity.

But at the swearing in of the NDP government in 2017, incoming premier John Horgan named James his minister of finance.

She got a bigger hand than anyone in the room, the premier included.

[email protected]

Article content