What happens next after Findlay quits as Conservative leader

PENTICTON — Kerry-Lynne Findlay resigned as Conservative Party of BC Leader Sunday, leaving the role empty. What happens next depends largely on what Premier David Eby decides next..First, let's assume the rumours are true and a snap election is imminent.Conservatives would then have to go into an election under an interim Leader, whoever it happens to be. As there would be no time for the membership vote, the party's board would be responsible for making that decision on behalf of its members.Article 11.03 still requires the board to call a special leadership election within 12 months of the last leader's resignation and to give members at least 180 days' notice, a window the board can shorten. Article 12 lets the same board name an interim Leader. However, it further stipulates that person cannot then run for the official job.12 sitting Conservative MLAs have already signed a letter to the board backing Cariboo-Chilcotin MLA Lorne Doerkson as that interim..Doerkson is deputy house leader on the June team Findlay named. Party sources had already told the Western Standard he was being considered for the interim role.The information provided by those sources was further confirmed on Sunday evening when the caucus letter supporting Doerksen was also posted to X..The letter is only a caucus recommendation and a request. The appointment still belongs to the party board.Adding to the comedy of confusion are reports Doerksen is currently in Africa without cellular reception making it difficult for him to answer the call (if he's even aware of it)..Regardless, until the board has rendered their decision, Heather Maahs remains the officer the House recognizes as interim Leader of the Official Opposition.Also regardless, a depleted Conservative caucus would almost certainly campaign under Doerkson, Maahs, or another sitting MLA, to rebuild the caucus ahead of a snap election.The writ scenario creates the strongest incentive since August for MLAs who left the roll, or were taken off it, to come back.On Friday, the Clerk recorded Trevor Halford, Claire Rattée and John Rustad as no longer affiliated with the Conservative caucus after Maahs sent word. All three still hold their seats. .Readmission for Rattée, Halford, and Rustad is a caucus and board decision, not an automatic reset with a change of leadership. The political case for taking one, two, or all three back is strongest the day a writ drops. Nothing on the record Sunday said they had been invited back at this stage.Brennan Day and Scott McInnis left on their own in late August and September 2 and sit as Independents. They never joined CentreBC. Their public letters were about Findlay's judgment and the people around her, so their migration back to the BC Conservative caucus seems plausible..The CentreBC eight are a harder group to fold back in.Peter Milobar, Ian Paton, Rosalyn Bird, Bruce Banman, Teresa Wat, Á'a:líya Warbus, Donegal Wilson and Elenore Sturko stood up Friday in Vancouver, named Milobar leader, and said the party would take third-party status when the House returns October 5. A snap would cancel that sitting before it starts.Collapsing a day-old party to run again as BC Conservatives would mean eating Friday's launch. On the one hand, the incentive exists in terms of a perception of electability under the same banner they ran on previously. On the other hand, such a move would undermine's the party's own public commitment from only days earlier..The official leadership vote to replace Findlay, meanwhile, would need to wait in this scenario.Worth considering, here, is the board does not have to pick an MLA as the new interim leader. .The Conservative Party of BC's Constitution Act s. 1 still requires the leader of a recognized party in the legislature to be an MLA, so an extra-parliamentary interim could campaign as the Leader on the election pamphlets while Maahs, or another sitting Conservative, held the House chair.The caveat is that said person, under the existing BC Conservative Constitution, would then be barred from the official race that must follow. Taking the five-week job would mean giving up the real one whenever an official leadership race begins.One name bandied about for such a role as an "extra-parliamentary interim leader" is Caroline Elliott. .Elliott took 49% of the points on the final May ballot and has no seat. Elliott only lost to Findlay by a razor-thin margin, but parking the runner-up in the interim leadership chair for an election could still present the risk of looking, to the members who just voted, like the board relitigating the May 30 leadership vote.Another name party sources have shared with the Western Standard for that kind of decision, and one who presents a similar risk, is Iain Black. .Black was eliminated on the third ballot in May with about 30% of the points. He is a former Gordon Campbell cabinet minister and has no seat. He posted Sunday after Findlay resigned and treated an election as imminent. The risk for him, as with Elliott, is creating the perception that the board is reimagining the leadership race and going against the wishes of its own members.A third name in circulation, and a less controversial one on account of not running in the most recent ledership race, is Conservative MP for North Island—Powell River Aaron Gunn..Gunn declined the last provincial leadership race December 24. A sitting MP cannot take the House chair in Victoria simply by moving back to British Columbia and accepting the role. He would have to leave his seat in Parliament for a month-long provincial campaign only to then, under the party's constitution, be forbidden from converting into the official leadership. Under those rules, it would make little sense for a federal MP to give up his seat, and salary, with no foreseeable election in sight to take only a chance at a temporary role. Theoretically, iIf Gunn still wanted the official provincial job, he could wait for a writ, leave Ottawa, win a seat, and enter the membership race inside 12 months. That would be a complex, multi-step, and potentially risky bet.As such, the three aforementioned extraparliymanetary leader options run from unlikely to extremely unlikely — at this juncture, anyway.That is the map if Eby walks to Government House and asks the Lieutenant Governor to drop the writ..If Eby leaves the writ in the drawer, the sub-scenarios look slightly less complex, even though they are still jarring.The reason is time — assuming Eby chooses to keep the government intact for a whole year. That would give the BC Conservatives enough time to hold another leadership race.In the shorter term, meanwhile, Saturday's Abbotsford-Mission byelection would stay on the calendar. Advance polls are already open through Wednesday. Findlay remains the Conservative name on the Elections BC list. A win would put her in the House as an MLA, even though it would not make her Leader again..The pressure on Halford, Rattée, Rustad, Day, and McInnis to come back to caucus this week would subside significantly. It would, however, put the new interim in a position of having to decide whether Findlay even stays in the caucus. Maahs would be the likeliest to say yes. But another interim could try the same move Findlay used Friday, when the Clerk recorded Halford, Rattée and Rustad as no longer affiliated.From there, the next step for Findlay would be in her court.She could sit as an Independent. She could also align with Dallas Brodie and try to build OneBC into a recognized House caucus again. OneBC currently has one sitting MLA. Official party status in the legislature has required four. Findlay plus her husband, Surrey South MLA Brent Chapman, would get Brodie to three.It is also possible she leaves with Chapman and tries to stand up a new party in the House, perhaps with Tara Armstrong or Jordan Kealy, or both. Both sit as Independents. Armstrong endorsed Findlay on April 16. Kealy backed that endorsement the same night..Never a dull moment in BC politics, as they say.

What happens next after Findlay quits as Conservative leader

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