British Columbia·AnalysisWednesday was the final day the B.C. legislature was in session for 2025 — and it sure delivered a season finale. Rustad cornered due to disputes over leadership, not ideology, but the latter could matter going forwardJustin McElroy · CBC News · Posted: Dec 03, 2025 11:21 PM EST | Last Updated: 8 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 5 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.John Rustad, now disputed Opposition Leader, has said he considers himself leader of the B.C. Conservatives, in spite of the party’s board and many caucus members demanding he step down. (Emily Fagan / CBC)Wednesday was the final day the B.C. legislature was in session for 2025 — and it sure delivered a season finale. After months of MLAs either leaving his party or being removed from it, now disputed Opposition Leader John Rustad appeared cornered. The B.C. Conservative Party’s board said that because a majority of Rustad’s caucus had voted to remove him, he was “professionally incapacitated” and therefore removed as leader. It led to a dramatic afternoon of duelling scrums in the legislature between supporters of Rustad and Trevor Halford, the Surrey-White Rock MLA that the Conservative Party board said had been installed as interim leader. With both sides claiming legitimacy — but with the party’s board, caucus and website seemingly supporting Halford — a defiant Rustad said the party had no legal standing to remove him. “Nothing has changed,” said Rustad, later tweeting “a political party’s board can throw around whatever creative terminology they like, ‘professional incapacitation’? Give me a break.”It may have sparked a day of comparisons to antipopes, Monty Python’s Black Knight, and slow-motion coups, but it appeared to conclude on Wednesday night with no clarity. With the legislature adjourned for the session, there was no pressing need for Speaker Raj Chouhan to resolve the question of who would be recognized as Opposition Leader inside the legislature. But regardless of how the dramatic standoff concludes, party members will likely keep talking about this season’s buzzy finale — and what the long-term arc of next season could look like. WATCH | John Rustad defiant after his party’s board makes a move:Rustad says he remains B.C. Conservative leaderJohn Rustad tells reporters before question period that he remains the leader of the B.C. Conservative Party, saying ‘nothing has changed’ after the party board said it had removed him. Done in by leadership, not ideologyAccording to multiple sources, the 20 MLAs who allegedly called for Rustad’s removal don’t fit neatly into one box.The Conservative Party caucus is a mix of people associated with establishment B.C. United Party that preceded them as the official opposition, populist activists dominant in the party prior to their de facto takeover of B.C. United, longtime community leaders, political rookies, and everything in between. “It’s a very unruly caucus, a very diverse coalition of people,” said Fraser Valley University political scientist Hamish Telford.“I think he tried to play the ends against the middle, evidently to no avail. And which brings us to today.”Many people who commented on the day’s dramatic twists said Rustad lost many of his MLAs not through political ideas or any one act, but through a cumulative failure of political leadership. “It wasn’t one wing of the party that he lost support from. It was from all over the place,” said Amelia Boultbee, one of five MLAs elected under the Conservative Party who, prior to Wednesday, had either left or been removed from the party after feuds with Rustad. While Boultbee is seen as part of the more moderate wing of the party, it was a sentiment echoed by Bryan Breguet, a more populist candidate for the party in the last election.“[Rustad] is not super ideologically driven, so he can easily be swayed left or right on some issues … it’s really those soft skills, how to deal with people, how to deal with the caucus,” Breguet said.“To his credit, it’s not easy to hold the right united in B.C., and this caucus in particular. But he has made mistakes left and right, and he has doubled down on those mistakes.”LISTEN | What comes next for the B.C. Conservatives?:On The Coast12:54Fallout continues from the B.C. Conservatives saying that John Rustad is no longer leader of the partyUBC Political Scientist Stewart Prest talks to Gloria Macarenko about what happens next with the B.C. Conservatives now that the party says they’ve removed John Rustad as leader, but Rustad is saying he’s not going anywhere.What comes next?The attempted appointment of ex-B.C. United MLA Halford as interim leader, instead of someone with a lower or more ambiguous political profile, could be a signal those against Rustad have put aside their internal political disagreements for the time being. But the larger question is whether ideological divides will be a factor in any future leadership race, and if an open leadership debate can repair the cracks that grew over the course of Rustad’s various feuds, or break them further open. “It is more important than ever that we keep our party intact, get our shit together, and get focused on defeating the NDP,” said Conservative MLA Gavin Dew, who has posted a number of essays and videos about his vision for an anti-NDP coalition. Should Rustad lose leadership of the party, the board and its MLAs will be faced with a series of dilemmas in the coming months. Does a long interim period before a leadership campaign help to heal that divide, or expose the party to the risks of an early election? If a candidate clearly associated with one wing emerges victorious, do anti-Rustad alternatives like MLA Dallas Brodie’s OneBC or former MLA Karin Kirkpatrick’s CentreBC gain steam? Big questions for B.C.’s opposition party, regardless of who — or how many people — are calling themselves leader in the days to come. ABOUT THE AUTHORJustin is the Municipal Affairs Reporter for CBC Vancouver, covering local political stories throughout British Columbia.
Actual leader of the B.C. Conservatives up in the air and so are their next moves
