Scott McInnis leaves Conservative caucus, says Findlay cannot form government

PENTICTON — Columbia River-Revelstoke MLA Scott McInnis has left the Conservative Party of BC caucus and will sit as an Independent, saying Kerry-Lynne Findlay’s leadership cannot deliver the government he came to Victoria to help form.McInnis posted a two-page Legislative Assembly letter to X just after noon Wednesday. He is Findlay’s critic for Indigenous relations and, since the June 29 shuffle, the caucus lead on policy development.“It is with some sadness that I announce I am leaving the BC Conservative Party caucus to sit as an Independent Member of the Legislative Assembly, effective immediately,” he wrote..He is the ninth sitting Conservative to leave Findlay’s caucus since August 14, and the second to go Wednesday. Boundary-Similkameen MLA Donegal Wilson posted her own letter at 10:03 a.m. Findlay won the leadership on May 30..“I have a tremendous amount of respect for my colleagues who remain in the conservative caucus, and my decision in no way reflects on how I feel about those individuals,” McInnis wrote.The teacher-turned-MLA said he did not leave a classroom to spend the rest of his career shouting at a government. “When I left the teaching profession and entered public life, I did so because I wanted to materially improve the lives of my constituents and help build a better British Columbia, especially for rural communities. I did not come here simply to oppose government. I came here because I wanted to help form one.”“My goal has always been to serve the people of Columbia River-Revelstoke and help improve British Columbia. However, I no longer believe that goal can be attained under the current leadership.”.“I am a conservative person. My values, shaped by a rural upbringing and grounded in conservative principles, remain unchanged: small government, lower taxes, a strong economy, individual freedoms, justice, merit, and a duty to help your neighbours and community. Those values remain unchanged. What I can no longer support are the direction, judgment and decisions of Kerry-Lynne Findlay’s leadership.”Then the file he shares with Wilson, Brennan Day and Á’a:líya Warbus: staff, appointments, ethics, Alberta, and the RCMP.“Since becoming leader, decisions about staffing, senior appointments, caucus relations and the direction of the organization have caused me growing concern."McInnis went on to cite competent and experienced staff having been fired and serious ethical questions having accumulated around members of the leader’s senior team..Findlay ordered caucus director of operations Apollo Chung fired on August 26 after three audio clips circulated on X. Independent Delta South MLA Ian Paton said RCMP officers were scheduled to interview him Wednesday morning about an alleged paid offer from then-chief of staff Chris Delaney to vacate his seat so Findlay could run. Findlay has denied any job-for-seat deal.Minutes after McInnis posted, Canadian Press reported Findlay had accepted Delaney’s resignation and named former Abbotsford-Mission MLA Reann Gasper chief of staff. Gasper vacated that seat August 22 so Findlay could contest the September 26 by-election. The Western Standard has requested comment from Findlay on McInnis’s letter.McInnis’s other charge is coalition math. “At the same time, the party has increasingly become an exclusive private club more concerned with ideological bona fides than building the broad coalition required to serve British Columbians and form government.”.“Since 1956, no party has defeated the NDP unless they welcomed voters from the centre out to the right of the political spectrum. This is a historical fact, one that current BCC leadership refuses to accept.”“This is a recipe for failure.”He closed as a conservative who still wants the job. “I remain a conservative. I will continue working toward a government grounded in free enterprise, responsible fiscal management and a positive vision for BC, one capable of bringing people together rather than driving them apart.”“History in BC teaches us what works and what does not. We have work to do, and I am up for the job.”Five days earlier he had told this newspaper the opposite of Wednesday’s letter..In an on-record interview Friday evening, August 28, McInnis said Peter Milobar had not warned him before walking out August 14, and that he himself had no plan to follow.“I was elected as a BC Conservative and one of my overarching values as a conservative is a duty to my community, and my caucus is my community,” he said then. “As we sit here today, I’m still a part of the BC Conservatives. I do not have a plan in place to leave at some point.”He wanted the Monday, August 31 Richmond caucus meeting to be the argument, not another exit. “I don’t think there’ll be any appetite for glossing over those issues… for all of us, including the leader.”Wilson treated the empty chair as the verdict this morning. McInnis waited until after lunch and then used the same staff-and-Alberta file..McInnis is a first-term East Kootenay MLA who took a thin seat on his first try. He moved to Kimberley from a small Ontario farm community in 2010, taught and later served as a principal in both independent and public schools, coached East Kootenay basketball championships, and runs a Christmas-tree hobby farm with his wife Diana and their son. He was first nominated as a BC United candidate. After Kevin Falcon suspended that campaign he ran Conservative.On October 19, 2024 he took 8,768 votes, 47.92%, to NDP candidate Andrea Dunlop’s 8,098, 44.26%. The margin was 670 votes on 18,296 valid ballots. Green candidate Calvin Beauchesne took 7.82%. It is not a safe Conservative lock if the right-of-centre vote splits before the next general election.The Conservatives kept him on indigenous relations after Findlay’s June 29 shuffle and added caucus policy development. On June 30 he posted that he was “thrilled to have the confidence” of Findlay and his colleagues to keep the critic file..He never put a Findlay endorsement on the public record. He stood on the legislature steps February 25 with Brennan Day, Gavin Dew, Kiel Giddens and Ward Stamer and endorsed Milobar. On the first ballot in Columbia River-Revelstoke, Findlay still led the riding: 30.81 points and 53 of 172 votes. Milobar took 27.33 points and 47 votes. Caroline Elliott took 25 points. Yuri Fulmer took 8.72. Iain Black took 8.14. Findlay’s first-choice share in the riding sat just above her provincial first-ballot 29.9% of votes and 30.5% of points. She won the province 51% to 49% on the final count.The Conservatives won 44 seats in 2024. After McInnis they are down to 29 sitting caucus members, not counting Abbotsford-Mission, which Gasper vacated so Findlay can seek it on September 26. Official opposition status depends on caucus size. The legislature is not sitting. When it returns October 5, McInnis will sit outside the official opposition with Peter Milobar, Ian Paton, Rosalyn Bird, Teresa Wat, Brennan Day, Bruce Banman, Á’a:líya Warbus and Donegal Wilson..The ledger since August 14 is now nine names. Milobar left August 14, saying his values no longer aligned with Findlay’s “new direction.” Paton followed August 24 and later said 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. Wilson also walked Wednesday morning, just hours before McInnis made his announcement..McInnis spent last week on the file he was hired to hold, not on caucus obituaries. On Friday he quote-tweeted Langley-Abbotsford MLA Harman Bhangu’s Elections BC approval for a citizen-initiative petition to repeal the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act and told the Western Standard he was “100%, 150%” behind it. On Saturday he was still posting the $1.5-billion natural-gas royalty forecast error. On Tuesday he was still posting a Public Land Use Society poll on land-use secrecy.“Leaving caucus does not change what I believe,” Wilson's letter read this morning. The by-election his former colleagues are being asked to knock doors for is 24 days away.

Scott McInnis leaves Conservative caucus, says Findlay cannot form government

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