The fall session of the B.C. legislature reached an abrupt halt on Wednesday evening as Conservative Caucus infighting enveloped the party and continued resistance to the NDP agenda became insignificant.
Confusion and disarray had mounted throughout the day after John Rustad refused to step aside as B.C. Conservative leader, despite the party claiming to have removed him from the post. This led to some serious succession strife as Conservative MLAs walked the hallways pledging loyalty to different leaders.
With three bills left on the docket, the Conservatives could conceivably have drawn out the debate another day. But an embattled Rustad decided it didn’t make sense to contest non-controversial and technical legislation amid the upheaval. He directed Attorney General Critic Steve Kooner to throw in the towel.
“Given the chaos that was happening with our party, it made no sense to carry forward,” he said.
After a restless night’s sleep, Rustad decided on Thursday morning that he too would give in — stepping aside as leader to avoid a party “civil war.”
It was a fitting end to a session in which most of the drama unfolded not in the House chamber itself, but in the hallways and offices throughout the rest of the building.
Rustad wandered into the legislative press gallery several hours after his resignation, regaling reporters with tales of wildlife encounters.
In one story, a full-grown moose charged him while he snowshoed.
He stood his ground. The moose stopped, snorted and turned away.
“Politics is nothing compared to that,” he said.
The action inside and outside the House
The last three bills to pass on Wednesday included one to modernize consumer protection against new types of cyber fraud, and two that make online versions of laws, statutes and regulations official, so that they can be used in court hearings.
Major pieces of legislation passed earlier in the session, such as one to expedite the North Coast Transmission Line project by involving First Nations through co-ownership stakes, another strengthening penalties for non-consensual sharing of intimate images and one creating rules to ensure construction contractors get paid on time.
NDP MLAs ably pushed this agenda through, but even for them, the action was outside the House. National news turned its attention west several times this fall as Premier David Eby pushed for the federal government to include B.C. projects on the ‘nation-building’ list, while simultaneously trying to hinder Alberta’s efforts to lobby for another oil pipeline.
In his session wrap-up remarks, Eby said the focus this fall was on “planting the seeds to build the resilient economy that British Columbians need.” He was referring to these projects, as well as jobs and training programs that his government has introduced to ensure the workers are available to make them happen.
While he lobbied Ottawa for support for these projects, Eby also publicly broke with the prime minister after a memorandum of understanding was signed between Alberta and the feds to work together on building a new oil pipeline to B.C.’s coast.
Meanwhile, Forests Minister Ravi Parmar continues to deal with a struggling lumber industry, faced with mill closures and job losses due to tariffs and a lack of economically accessible timber.
This point was driven home several times in Trevor Halford’s first speech as interim leader for the B.C. Conservatives.
“We’ve got members here that are fielding phone calls hourly on the mill closures, where they don’t know how they’re putting gifts under their Christmas tree this year,” Halford said. “That is what’s keeping this caucus up at night.”
Third parties make an impact
While chaos and division hampered the effectiveness of the Official Opposition, and the NDP focused on promoting economic growth through major resource and gas projects, the B.C. Greens didn’t garner much attention at times during the session, forced to publicly oppose parts of the government’s agenda while working hand-in-hand behind closed doors.
“It may not make a lot of headlines, and we’re fine with that,” B.C. Green MLA Jeremy Valeriote said. “We just plug away.”
Still, there were some real successes for the party that emerged out of its agreement with the government.
The Clean B.C. review, for example, made it clear that more effort is needed to address climate change. Emissions targets are not being met, and a new strategy must be developed, the review found. It is still to be seen what change will come from this.
The fourth party, One B.C., used their first session to prove that while two MLAs in staunch opposition to the government may not be able to steer policy, they can make a great deal of noise.
This included what seemed like daily introductions of inflammatory private members’ bills, and the spending of public caucus funds to make a documentary taking on what their MLAs call the “reconciliation industry.”
These controversial stances led to a showdown between police, One B.C. supporters and protesters at the University of Victoria on Tuesday. The school would not let the party show its documentary on campus.
Police arrested prominent party supporter and former Mount Royal University political science professor Frances Widdowson during the melee.
True to her style, One B.C. Leader Dallas Brodie took to social media on Thursday to stoke the flames after news broke of Rustad’s resignation. She called the Conservative Party the “Titanic,” and One B.C. a “rocket ship.”
“Their party sank because it is filled with corrupt backroom dealers and fake, self-serving MLAs,” she said.
Despite Brodie’s vocal stance, Halford did not rule out welcoming her, or any of the four other former Conservatives who left or were forced out of the party under Rustad, back into the fold.
He said he will leave that up to the next party leader. That person will not be him.
“I am not running to be the next premier of this province, but I am going to support whoever accepts that,” he said.