BREAKING: CentreBC says 'Milobar flips – again'

PENTICTON — CentreBC accused Peter Milobar on Tuesday of walking back to the Conservative Party of BC without telling the party's executive council, four days after Mike Bernier stepped aside and handed him the leadership.The party posted a same-day release under the headline "Milobar flips—Again." It said the Kamloops Centre MLA announced that he and some of the MLAs who had sat with him would return to the Conservatives, and that he did not discuss it with the executive.."We are disappointed that Peter Milobar and others did not stand by commitments made to this party, its Executive Council, and its members," president Mike Wignall said in the statement. "We all want to remove the NDP government which has caused such harm to our province, but at the end of the day, you also have to stand for something. CentreBC remains committed to our foundational values and will not be selling out to divisive politics.".The release landed about an hour after Premier David Eby asked Lt.-Gov. Wendy Lisogar-Cocchia to dissolve the legislature. Final voting day is Saturday, October 24. Election Act s. 24(2) cancelled the Abbotsford-Mission byelection on the spot.Reporters spent that same hour rewriting copy as the centre-right map moved. CBC's Katie DeRosa posted at 12:58 p.m. PDT that a deal had been reached to merge CentreBC into the Conservatives, with interim leader Lorne Doerkson at the top and candidates running under the Conservative banner..CentreBC aimed its next post at that item. "CentreBC did NOT merge with BC Conservatives," the party wrote. "Mr Milobar nor the other MLA's did not inform us as to what was going on. Speaks volumes of their character.".DeRosa put up a clarification 30 minutes after her first post. Rather than a merger, she wrote, seven of the eight MLAs who joined CentreBC would go back to the Conservatives. Surrey-Cloverdale MLA Elenore Sturko told her she is the only one who will not go back, "saying her values don't align." CentreBC, she added, will continue as a party..None of those seven had posted a confirmation on their own feeds when this draft closed. Doerkson had a Conservative press conference still expected later Tuesday. The Office of the Clerk had not independently refreshed affiliation on the public Assembly list in this file.Bernier stepped aside Friday in Vancouver and named Milobar leader of a caucus of eight sitting MLAs — Milobar, Paton, Banman, Bird, Wat, Warbus, Wilson, and Sturko. Six of those names had left Kerry-Lynne Findlay's Conservative caucus in August and September and first tried to stand up an unnamed vehicle with Milobar and Paton. Sturko had sat Independent since John Rustad's September 2025 ouster, then joined the Friday launch. She is not a Findlay-era walkout..Attacks on reporters for missed, incomplete or false information ran through Tuesday. DeRosa took it after the merger post. The Western Standard took it too.This reporter broke Tuesday morning that multiple sources said failed Conservative leadership candidate Iain Black had made a late-night pitch to the party's management committee to replace Doerkson, who had held the interim post for a day..Black challenged that item. He posted that he had pledged "unequivocal support" to Doerkson. In a reply to the Western Standard he wrote that any late-night calls he was on "were exploring all the different ways I can help Lorne win an unnecessary and cynically-called election," and asked whether the newsroom had reached him first..The Western Standard has corroborated the original reporting with additional sources and stands by it. Some of those same sources now say Black is slated as chair of the Conservative election campaign, with Dimitri Pantazopoulos — Black's campaign manager in the spring leadership.It was later reported on Tuesday the campaign would be led by Katy Merrifeld, Dimitri Pantazopoulos and Jeff Ballingall..Doerkson said Monday evening the Conservative caucus was "back up to 29" after he readmitted Trevor Halford, Linda Hepner, Scott McInnis, Claire Rattée and John Rustad. The Conservative authorized account welcomed Courtenay-Comox MLA Brennan Day back Tuesday. Day left Findlay's caucus August 26 and sat as an Independent Conservative. He never joined CentreBC.If all the chaotic reporting is entirely accurate, it now appears to be back up to 36, with the return of eight CentreBC MLAs minus Elenore Sturko, plus Day, minus Surrey South MLA Brent Chapman, who posted Tuesday morning that he was leaving that caucus for OneBC..As of Tuesday afternoon, Milobar had not answered the CentreBC release.

BREAKING: CentreBC says 'Milobar flips – again'

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