Peter Milobar, the former Kamloops mayor and current MLA for Kamloops Centre, is entering the race to be the next leader of the B.C. Conservative Party.
Stationing himself for the Friday morning (Jan. 16) announcement of his candidacy directly in front of the premier’s office in Victoria, Milobar said his goal is to bring “full accountability” to the B.C. government and lead the Conservative party to become an “effective opposition” and “clearly demonstrate we are a government in waiting.”
Milobar was first elected in 2017 for the B.C. Liberal Party. After that party changed its name to B.C. United, and later withdrew from the 2024 provincial election, Milobar switched sides and joined the Conservatives.
He currently serves as the party’s finance critic, a role he also held for United.
Milobar’s candidacy joins a growing field of officially announced candidates, including former B.C Liberal minister Iain Black, Capilano University Chancellor Yuri Fulmer, and Prince George-North Cariboo MLA Sheldon Clare. Political commentator Caroline Elliott also launched a leadership bid on Friday with a video on social media.
The party has not yet released the schedule and rules for the leadership race, but a committee has been struck to oversee it.
Milobar is perhaps the most high-profile candidate to announce from within the existing 39-member Conservative caucus. He also has the potential to tap into a well of support from ex-B.C. Liberals.
“Two years ago, the B.C. Conservatives had 500 party members,” he said. “So, if you’re not one of those 500 people, chances are you’re a former B.C. Liberal donor, former B.C. Liberal member, former B.C. Liberal voter.”
He also plans to try to increase the party’s membership through his candidacy. He says that as he phoned around, testing the waters to decide whether he would run, people told him “that’s great if you run, I have a political home again, and I’ll buy a membership.”
But Milobar also sought to make it known that B.C. Liberal can also mean federal Conservative, and he positioned himself as not just a free enterprise candidate, but also a conservative who would tackle street disorder, fix the health-care system and repeal the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) to restore confidence in private property rights.
He made it a point to emphasize that last piece, calling for a new reconciliation act to replace DRIPA, one that creates a framework to build upon court decisions, rather than influence them. And he pushed back at people who say that doing so is discriminatory.
“It does not make one racist to say that they do not agree with DRIPA,” he said.
Asked if he would welcome any of the Independent MLAs back into the fold who left under former leader John Rustad, Milobar said this should be something the next leader decides in consultation with the caucus.
But he did make a remark about One B.C. leader Dallas Brodie that was telling about his relationship with the most right-wing of those former Conservative MLAs.
“I think Dallas Brodie is in one article stating she would never come back if I were the leader,” he said. “So, I think that conversation is dead in the water.”