The unrest within the BC Conservatives took another turn as a fifth MLA left the caucus and is now sitting as an independent.
Penticton-Summerland MLA Amelia Boultbee left the official opposition and is re-igniting calls for party leader and Nechako Lakes MLA John Rustad to step down citing “massive credibility problems”
UNBC Political Science Lecturer, Jason Morris told Vista Radio when the internal in-fighting reaches us, it’s often far worse than what we are seeing.
“I think this has negative implications for holding government accountable because the official opposition is supposed to be the government in waiting that is ready to take over the reigns.”
Morris added it’s not uncommon for right-wing parties to go through this turbulence, citing that John Rustad’s job as leader is no easy task.
“Then they have to have a leader that is going to be assertive to keep the caucus together and that leader is demonised as dictatorial. It is really tough to be a leader in the BC Conservatives that not only grew so fast but also keep together a dispirit caucus.”
“They tried to to put together a group of fiscal conservatives, the social and moderate conservatives and they are not quite to the NDP and then they have to hold together the federal Liberals and Conservative party members. It’s no big surprise this party has had trouble.”
Boultbee plans to work closely with Surrey-Cloverdale MLA Elenore Sturko, who was booted from the Conservatives in September.
This occurred shortly after Rustad survived a leadership vote.
Dallas Brodie, MLA for Vancouver-Quilchena, was expelled from the party in March after comments she made on a podcast about residential school survivors.
Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream MLA Tara Armstrong and Jordan Kealy left shortly afterward.
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