“Team Rustad” prevailed at the first annual general assembly of the British Columbia Conservatives since its entry on the dominant political scene of the province in the elections of last year and becoming the official opposition.
Saturday’s meeting came in the midst of divisions within the party that the chief John Rustad Represented as a force and not a weakness, in his speech at around 800 delegates.
“So, our deputies can get up and speak, you know, even if it can be something with which I do not agree, because freedom of expression must be at the heart of what we are as a democracy,” Rustad told delegates in Nanaimo, British Columbia,
Later, he told journalists that if everyone “sang Kumbaya and all the same, then you are not a real party” and that you must be able to consider the differences “as a force of who we are as a party”.
The leader firmly put his stamp on the party by organizing a list of candidates for management positions under the name of “Team Rustad”.
Each of his candidates prevailed.
Among them, the president of the Aisha Estey party, who held the challenges of four rivals, including a group of unsuccessful candidates in the provincial autumn elections.
Rustad’s favorite candidates also prevailed as vice-president, secretary, treasurer and the five positions of level director.
Rustad told delegates that it was because of his strong conviction in democracy that his party has free votes in the legislative assembly.
It was a full house in the conference room, where some delegates had to stand in the back. A little over two years ago, when Rustad joined the Conservatives, there were only 800 members throughout the game, he said.
In addition to supporting the executive slate of Rustad, the members also voted in favor of Rustad’s decision to modify the constitution of the party.
“This is a basic party. It has always been a basic party and I want it to always be a basic party, “Rustad told journalists.
“It is therefore essential that we have a constitution that reflects this and ensures that people are engaged at all levels of our party.”
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The modified constitution included a measure which would probably stabilize party leadership by reducing compulsory exams. Under the old Constitution, leadership exams took place every two years, but under new rules, an examination will only be held after each provincial election.
Rustad will face his first leadership review this fall.
Peter Milobar, Kamloops conservative deputy, said in an interview before the Aga that the party and its diverse range of candidates met “in very strange circumstances”, in the middle of the summer and barely weeks before the general elections.
“I see that we are very new party, really at the base,” he said. “And so, I think we always find our feet.”
The conservatives have passed not to have been elected in the previous provincial elections at 44 in October, approaching the government.
Its increase occurred after Kevin Falcon of the United Party of British Columbia suspended the party’s electoral campaign in August to prevent the voting on the right, while support for the Conservatives has increased.
Some members of British Columbia from the Legislative Assembly – of which Milobar – jumped to the Conservatives. Others have tried the independent and lost route.
The result is a caucus with large -scale views that have already been exposed during the two -week legislative session.
Rustad described it earlier this week as “family” problems and postponed questions if there is a flaw in the party.
“You know, I find it interesting because for the media, and I think that for the public, they have never seen a political party that accepts the differences,” said Rustad.
The cracks in the caucus became clear when the conservative deputy Dallas Brodie posted on social networks on February 22 that there was “zero” children’s burial sites in the former Kamloops residential school, in British Columbia,
Rustad said he had asked him to withdraw him, but the position remains a week later. It has been seen more than half a million times.
The head of the conservative chamber, Aliya Warbus, who is native, said that the questioning of the stories of those who survived the atrocities of residential schools is harmful, even if she denied having responded to the post of Brodie.
Milobar also did not mention the names when he talked about the residence “denial of the denial of the residential school in the legislative assembly this week.
But he said he had sworn to those of the first nation tk’emlups Te Secwepemc, where the former residential school of Kamloops is located, which he would always be expressed against this.
“As you know, my wife, my children, they are all indigenous. My grandchildren are native, my son-in-law is a member of the Kamloops group.
“These types of things are very personal, and therefore when the denial is the fact from time to time in the wider conversation, both in British Columbia and through the country, this has a direct impact on TK’emlups,” he said in an emotional discourse.
Bruce Banman, the curator’s whip and the deputy for Abbotsford South, spoke on Saturday of a shared vote last Monday, when five conservatives opposed Rustad and voted against a motion condemning the American prices, raising questions about the chief’s control over the Caucus.
“The real courage, True Grit, allows your deputies to vote with their hearts and with their conscience on votes as we did,” said Banman.
Gavin Dew, conservative deputy for Kelowna-Mission and criticism for jobs, economic development and innovation, said that while speaking on a panel that the party was “going to have increasing pain, but growing pain is a sign of an increasing party because we become a pending government”.
“Yes, we will disagree on things, but fundamentally, what we have to agree is that we have to end the NPD,” said Dew.
This Canadian press report was published for the first time on March 1, 2025.
Note to readers: this is an corrected story. A previous version said that the provincial legislative session was one week instead of two weeks.