EXCLUSIVE: Halford leads late-night Conservative phone drive for Findlay resignation letter

PENTICTON - Surrey-White Rock MLA Trevor Halford spent Thursday night leading a phone campaign to get sitting Conservative MLAs onto a letter demanding Kerry-Lynne Findlay resign as leader of the Conservative Party of BC, according to four separate sources who spoke to the Western Standard.Kootenay-Rockies MLA Pete Davis worked the same list with him, said a Conservative MLA who spoke on background.Four people familiar with the calls — a Findlay supporter, a former Elliott staffer, a high-level party staffer, and the same MLA who spoke on background — said the goal was around 15 signatures. That would be more than half of the 28 MLAs still in the caucus, not counting vacant Abbotsford-Mission.The pitch, sources said, is to squeeze Findlay into resigning so Halford can return as interim leader if Premier David Eby drops a snap writ.Another element of the pitch is an informal proposal that Peter Milobar and the six other MLAs now in his still-unnamed party would come back into the fold under Halford's hypothetical return as interim leader..Halford held the combined interim party leadership and Official Opposition job from December 4, 2025 until Findlay's May 30 win. Heather Maahs has been interim Leader of the Official Opposition since June 29. Halford is now the critic for transit and ICBC. Davis is the critic for mining and critical minerals.CHEK's Rob Shaw, CTV's Robert Buffam and Global's Jordan Armstrong each reported Wednesday night that two unnamed sitting MLAs asked Findlay to resign "for the good of the party" and that Findlay refused.The Western Standard has since heard, from two additional sources, that those two unnamed MLAs are Claire Rattée and John Rustad.Interim Official Opposition leader Heather Maahs walked out of that meeting and called it "absolutely fantastic." Asked whether Findlay had stepped down, Maahs said she "absolutely" had not..The Conservative MLA who spoke to the Western Standard said the phone drive Halford led Thursday appeared to be driven by a sense of "general panic" inside some elements of the remaining caucus, and a belief that the public optics around Findlay have turned badly enough to necessitate a leadership change before a writ..Nine sitting Conservatives have already left between August 14 and September 2. Findlay still has no seat. She was acclaimed in Abbotsford-Mission after Reann Gasper resigned August 22.Voting day in that byelection is Saturday, September 26. Advance polls open Friday.A 15-name letter would be a majority of what is left of the caucus, but it would not force Findlay out of her leadership role. Article 11.02 of the party's March 1, 2025 constitution says the leader "can only be removed from office by resignation, death, incapacitation, or the leadership review vote resulting in less than fifty percent (50%) support of the Party Members in good standing who vote in a universal secret paper ballot." Article 5.13 carves the leader out of ordinary board discipline. There is no caucus-confidence clause..Where things get a bit ambiguous (and familiar) is that the constitution does not define "incapacitation."The board used that lack of specificity on December 3, 2025, certifying then-leader Rustad "professionally incapacitated" after 20 of 39 MLAs sent non-confidence letters to then-president Aisha Estey. The board named Halford interim leader.CBC later quoted party executives calling the reading "creative." Rustad rejected it, sat through question period as if he were still leader, and resigned the next day rather than take the society to court. The manoeuvre has never been run against a leader who stayed in the chair.Findlay's May 30 victory also reset the review clock in Article 11.04. The next guaranteed membership ballot is tied to the AGM after the next general election, which statute currently requires no later than October 21, 2028..If she resigned, Article 12 lets the board appoint an interim leader who may not then run in the contest that follows.Eby, meanwhile, spent a Surrey news conference Wednesday naming Cheryl Oates as the New Democrat campaign manager and telling his caucus and Elections BC to be election-ready. He would not set a date. A snap writ would cancel the Abbotsford-Mission byelection under Election Act s. 24(2). He is set to speak at the same UBCM convention Findlay spoke at on Thursday on Friday morning.Halford, Davis, Rattée and Rustad had not commented publicly on the letter by late Thursday.Sources said the letter, with however many signatures are on it by then, may be delivered publicly as early as Friday morning.

EXCLUSIVE: Halford leads late-night Conservative phone drive for Findlay resignation letter

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