THE TRIPLE O SUMMIT: A literal underground meeting in a White Spot basement

PENTICTON — Business leaders, right-of-centre political figures, and journalists convened a literal “underground meeting" in a White Spot restaurant basement Wednesday to discuss the future of the Conservative Party of BC..It's already being called the “Triple O” summit.The joke has a more serious backdrop behind it. Since Kerry-Lynne Findlay won the Conservative leadership on May 30, the official opposition has been coming apart in public. Five MLAs have left the caucus in 12 days. Staff have been fired. The board has turned over. Findlay does not have a seat. The party that took 44 ridings in October 2024 now sits at 33 members, not counting the riding being vacated so she can run.Johal says the White Spot meeting was booked before this week’s walkouts. That may be true. It does not change the backdrop. The people downstairs were talking about whether the free-enterprise vote still has a vehicle, because the one that exists is shedding parts..An invitation circulated to attendees was likewise less fun and more serious. It called the session “the path ahead” and listed four options: repair the Conservative Party of BC, join an existing alternative, revive a legacy party, or start a new one.CKNW host Jas Johal posted a photograph of that invitation Wednesday afternoon and said Conservative organizers and former BC Liberal organizers were in the room. He reported the meeting had been scheduled before this week’s caucus defections..“This is NOT a meeting soliciting support for a candidate,” the organizer wrote. Some people in the room had backed Kerry-Lynne Findlay in the Conservative leadership. Others had backed someone else. Some, the note said, “are not and were not members of that party.”.The reservation list wasn't made public, but Western Standard has identified at least a handful of the dozens of attendees.Dimitri Pantazopoulos is a pollster and former principal secretary to Premier Christy Clark — the operative widely credited with calling her 2013 win. Rachael Segal is a lawyer and strategist, a former senior director of the BC Liberal Party, who publicly backed Peter Milobar in this year’s Conservative leadership. Matt Stickney, a Surrey-raised former senior adviser in Justin Trudeau’s Prime Minister’s Office, is the odd chair: a federal Liberal machine guy in a meeting Johal described as Conservative and former BC Liberal organizers.Global named two more of them on camera: Jordan Bateman of the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association, and Colin Hansen, finance minister in Gordon Campbell’s BC Liberal government.“It’s pretty clear that the BC Conservative Party is falling apart at the seams,” Bateman told Global outside the venue. “I don’t think that’s a surprise. I don’t think we’ve seen the end of the defections.”“For someone like me who’s concerned about fiscal responsibility in government first and foremost, you have to have a government who can control spending, who’s going to keep taxes low,” he said. “We’ve got to create economic prosperity in BC. We know that’s not David Eby. We’ve seen his song and dance for the last few years. I was hopeful it was the BC Conservatives, but they’re now splintering, so yeah, you need to find a way to make sure that voters have a choice for fiscal responsibility and the other issues that are important to them.”After the meeting Bateman quote-posted Johal’s line — “Faith, Family, Freedom AND French Fries!” — and wrote: “Can confirm it was a Spot-sized crowd.”.Armstrong said the room, which included 60 people and was "standing room only," did not rally around a candidate or a leader. Several people told him there would likely be another meeting suggesting no consensus was reached on the "path forward."Johal, watching the same gathering, offered his own conclusion: that British Columbia may be watching “the rise of a new free enterprise party focused on the economy, not culture wars.”.Johal later posted a separate claim that party executive director Elaine Allan was in a standoff with the board and that board members had lost access to their emails. .The Western Standard has not confirmed that account. Allan is publicly listed as vice-chair of the Conservative Electors Association, an allied municipal vehicle whose advisory board Findlay chairs. Former party executive director Angelo Isidorou left that post at the end of July.The legislature is not sitting. When it returns, the official opposition will be smaller than the 44-seat caucus elected in October 2024. After Wednesday’s departures it sits at 33 members, not counting Abbotsford-Mission MLA Reann Gasper, who has said she will resign her seat so Findlay can contest it.

THE TRIPLE O SUMMIT: A literal underground meeting in a White Spot basement

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