Findlay’s chief of staff resigns amid Conservative caucus walkouts

PENTICTON — Conservative Party of BC Leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay accepted her chief of staff’s resignation Wednesday.The party’s statement on the resignation ran three sentences. Findlay said Chris Delaney had offered his resignation and she had accepted it. She named deputy chief of staff Reann Gasper to the job.Gasper vacated Abbotsford-Mission on August 22 so Findlay could run there September 26. Findlay made her deputy chief of staff two days later.The statement gave no reason..About half an hour later, @thefindlayfiles posted a four-minute clip it titled “FORMER KLF CHIEF OF STAFF CHRIS DELANEY SHARES HIS VIEWS ON ‘NATIVES.’”.The account says the voice is Delaney speaking to staff while he still held the job. It says he resigned because he knew the tape was coming.The Western Standard has reviewed the clip. Here are some of its contents: “Because the Natives on the Prairies would make pemmican… and they’d tell the stories about how there wasn’t enough pemmican. And the winter would go on too long. They’d starve," the voice — believed to be Delaney's — says as part of a long diatribe on indigenous people.“If that ever happened once to white people, they would make twice as much pemmican… instead of dead bodies, right?”.Findlay has not said whether the file is authentic. She has not said whether she heard it before she took the resignation. She has not said whether the comments are why Delaney is out.That is the same posture she used on August 26, when she ordered Delaney to fire caucus director of operations Apollo Chung the morning after three staff clips hit X, and again on August 27, when @thefindlayfiles posted the Penticton caucus recording of a voice that sounds like Findlay talking about parking a departing MLA as a “senior advisor” so a by-election could be called.CKNW host and former BC Liberal MLA Jas Johal tied Wednesday’s exit to the new tape within minutes of the post..“This may explain today’s abrupt departure of Kerry-Lynn Findlay’s Chief of Staff Chris Delaney,” he wrote. “His resignation, came after MLA’s Donegel Wilson and Scott Mcnnis announced they were leaving the party to sit as independents, joining 7 other MLA’s who have left.”Wilson posted at 10:03 a.m. McInnis posted just after noon. Findlay’s Delaney note followed in the early afternoon. The Findlay Files clip landed at 1:05 p.m.Wilson and McInnis both put staff and ethics in their individual explanation letters for why they were leaving the BC Conservative caucus. Wilson wrote that communication had broken down, that staff had been fired, and that her request for a meeting was denied.McInnis, Findlay’s indigenous relations critic until Wednesday, wrote that “serious ethical questions have accumulated around members of the Leader’s senior team” and that reported Alberta-separatism links and “matters involving the RCMP have only added to those concerns.”Independent Delta South MLA Ian Paton said RCMP officers were scheduled to interview him Wednesday morning about an alleged offer from Delaney: vacate the seat, take a two-year agriculture adviser role at MLA pay of $122,043. Findlay has denied any job-for-seat deal. The Mounties will not confirm or deny an investigation until charges..Delaney is not a new name to BC politics, although he was fairly new to the modern BC Conservatives. Findlay appointed the Barriere resident June 10, days after she won the May 30 leadership. He had previously led the BC Unity Party in 2001 and later fronted the anti-HST fight with former premier Bill Vander Zalm. In the memo that announced his hiring he told caucus he and Findlay had been friends for 40 years, that he owned a tree farm, and that his background was film, television animation and video games.The Conservatives won 44 seats in 2024. After Wilson and McInnis they sit at 29, not counting the vacant Abbotsford-Mission seat Gasper handed Findlay. Official opposition status depends on caucus size. The House returns October 5.@thefindlayfiles was created July 26. It is the same handle that posted the alleged leadership-campaign chat calling Teresa Wat “CCP” and the July 2-3 Penticton caucus tape. Findlay called that recording a political smear and said she could not determine authenticity. She treated the content as hers anyway.The new file is another surreptitious recording the public cannot chain to a room. It is also another senior Findlay hire leaving the building on the same day two more MLAs walked out.Gasper now runs the shop that Delaney ran. Findlay still needs a seat. The tape is on X.

Findlay’s chief of staff resigns amid Conservative caucus walkouts

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