Donegal Wilson leaves Conservative caucus, says she cannot campaign for Findlay

PENTICTON — Boundary-Similkameen MLA Donegal Wilson has left the Conservative Party of BC caucus and will sit as an Independent, saying she can no longer ask voters to put their confidence in Kerry-Lynne Findlay.Wilson posted a two-page Legislative Assembly letter to X at 10:03 a.m. Wednesday. She is Findlay’s critic for water, land, fisheries and wildlife management and deputy chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance.“Today, I made the decision that I can no longer serve as a member of the BC Conservative caucus,” she wrote. “I will continue representing the people of Boundary-Similkameen as an Independent Member of the Legislative Assembly.”.She is the eighth sitting Conservative to leave Findlay’s caucus since August 14, and the second to go after the Richmond meeting that was meant to air the damage was cancelled. Chilliwack-Cultus Lake MLA Á’a:líya Warbus walked Monday morning. Findlay won the leadership on May 30..“I was elected as a conservative. I remain a conservative. My principles have not changed,” Wilson wrote. “What has changed is my confidence in Kerry-Lynne Findlay’s leadership.”She gave the new leader a clock. “When Ms. Findlay became Leader, I promised myself I would keep an open mind and give her three months to show us how she intended to lead. Three months later, I have my answer. I never imagined things could go this wrong, this quickly.”Wilson said seven colleagues had already left, communication between the leader and caucus had “broken down,” and she had “watched colleagues I respect be treated in ways that deeply concern me.” She wrote that experienced staff had been fired and that Findlay had made senior appointments that “raise serious questions about her judgment,” including reports that more than one appointee had “links to Alberta’s separatist movement.”Then came the tape. “A recording attributed to her own Director of Operations discussing forcing fundraisers, wanting half a million dollars and being able to ‘steal everything.’".Findlay ordered caucus director of operations Apollo Chung fired on August 26 after three audio clips circulated on X. The Western Standard’s listen-through of those clips recorded the “half a million dollars” and “steal everything” lines.Wilson tied the staff file to two other fights already on the record. “These concerns come as Ms. Findlay remains embroiled in serious allegations arising from her 2025 federal campaign and mounting questions about alleged inducements to secure her a seat in the Legislature.”Those inducement questions landed on the same morning. Independent Delta South MLA Ian Paton said RCMP officers were scheduled to interview him Wednesday about an alleged paid offer to vacate his seat so Findlay could run. Findlay has denied any job-for-seat deal..Wilson says she asked for the meeting that never happened with the leader in the room. “Two weeks ago, I requested an in-person caucus meeting to speak openly with our Leader and begin rebuilding trust. Members made arrangements to attend, but less than two days before the meeting, it was cancelled. Caucus members met anyway, but her absence spoke volumes.”Radio host Jas Johal reported the Richmond sit-down cancelled on August 30. Findlay and the party did not post a cancellation of their own. Wilson treats the empty chair as the verdict.“I stayed because I wanted this to work. But these are not disagreements about conservative principles. They are the result of decisions made under Kerry-Lynne Findlay’s leadership. After three months, the dam has burst. I no longer believe she can bring Conservatives back together, rebuild trust or restore the credibility needed to defeat the NDP.”The September 26 Abbotsford-Mission by-election is the line she will not cross. Remaining in caucus, she wrote, would mean “raising money, knocking on doors and asking British Columbians to put their confidence in Kerry-Lynne Findlay.”“I cannot do that.”“If I cannot honestly campaign for our Leader, I cannot honestly remain in her caucus.”.Wilson is a first-term Southern Interior MLA who flipped an NDP seat on her first try. She was born in Summerland and raised on a cattle ranch in the Otter Valley near Tulameen. She graduated from Princeton Secondary, spent about 15 years in Smithers after community college in northwest BC, and came home to Keremeos, where she and her husband own Direct Performance, a small-engine shop. In 2012 she became executive director of the BC Snowmobile Federation, a job she kept through the 2024 campaign.The Conservatives named her the Boundary-Similkameen candidate in August 2024. She had about 10 weeks and 24 volunteers. On October 19 she took 11,935 votes, 48.39%, to NDP incumbent Roly Russell’s 10,497, 42.56%. The margin was 1,438 votes on 24,665 valid ballots. It is not a safe Conservative lock if the right-of-centre vote splits before the next general election..Findlay left her in the shadow cabinet when the new critic list was issued June 30. The file matches the riding: water, Crown land, fisheries, wildlife, mills, and rural emergency rooms that close on a schedule. The exit ends the critic role and the finance-committee deputy chair.She has used the critic file on the record. In late summer 2025 she demanded Housing and Municipal Affairs Minister Christine Boyle hold an open town hall in Okanagan Falls after the NDP stalled incorporation under the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act. “Reconciliation and democracy are not competing values; they must work together,” she said then. She called the Interfor mill’s indefinite Grand Forks closure heartbreaking and wrote that forestry workers need fibre and open gates, not another transition team.The Conservatives won 44 seats in 2024. After Wilson they are down to 30 sitting caucus members, not counting Abbotsford-Mission MLA Reann Gasper, who resigned her seat so Findlay can seek it on September 26. Official opposition status depends on caucus size. The legislature is not sitting. When it returns in the fall, Wilson will sit outside the official opposition with Peter Milobar, Ian Paton, Rosalyn Bird, Teresa Wat, Brennan Day, Bruce Banman and Á’a:líya Warbus..The ledger since August 14 is now eight names. Milobar left August 14, saying his values no longer aligned with Findlay’s “new direction.” Paton followed August 24 and later said chief of staff Chris Delaney twice offered him a paid agriculture-advisor job if he gave up the seat. Bird walked August 25, saying Findlay yelled at her and hung up after she refused to vacate her riding. Wat left August 26 after a leaked leadership-campaign chat branded her “CCP” and a promised apology never came. Day left that afternoon, saying he had lost confidence in Findlay’s “judgment, conduct, ethical standards and those she has chosen to surround herself with.” Banman walked August 27, called Findlay “unelectable,” and invited other MLAs to sit Independent with him. Warbus walked Monday morning, pointing at the postponed meeting and writing that her faith in Findlay’s “ability to lead this party to victory” was gone..Gasper’s August 22 resignation is separate. She vacated Abbotsford-Mission so Findlay, who still has no seat, could run the by-election Premier David Eby called August 29.Wilson’s public record on Findlay was thinner than the walkout letters until this morning. On June 17 she posted that Findlay was “focused on practical solutions: cutting wasteful spending, unleashing B.C.’s natural resources and putting more British Columbians back to work,” and that she was “proud to stand alongside her.”.Wednesday’s letter is the correction. She did not put a formal endorsement on the May 30 ballot in her own name. On the first ballot in Boundary-Similkameen, Findlay took 41.37 points and 103 of 249 votes. Caroline Elliott took 22.09 points. Yuri Fulmer took 14.46. Peter Milobar took 11.65. Iain Black took 10.44. Findlay’s first-choice share in the riding was well above her provincial first-ballot 29.9% of votes and 30.5% of points. She still won the province 51% to 49% on the final count. She also won Wilson’s riding on the first choice.Wilson kept the same critic file when Trevor Halford became interim leader after John Rustad’s December 4, 2025 resignation. She has not published a signed account of how she voted in the caucus move that removed Rustad. She is not among the five MLAs who put their names on the public loyalist list that day..The neighbouring seat is already gone from the Conservative column. Amelia Boultbee won Penticton-Summerland as a Conservative in 2024, left caucus on October 20, 2025, sat Independent, and joined the NDP caucus on July 3, 2026. Wilson’s riding was the one that still had a Conservative MLA between Summerland and the Boundary.She closed on the colleagues who stayed and on the work she says has not moved. “I have tremendous respect for my Conservative colleagues who remain. They will make their own decisions. This is mine.”“Leaving caucus does not change what I believe or what I was elected to stand for. I remain a fiscal conservative committed to free enterprise, responsible resource development, strong rural communities, smaller and more effective government and living within our means.”“My responsibility is to the people of Boundary-Similkameen. That has not changed, and neither has the work I was elected to do.”The by-election she will not knock doors for is 24 days away.

Donegal Wilson leaves Conservative caucus, says she cannot campaign for Findlay

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