A trio of ex-BC Conservative MLAs have spoken for the first time since their departure.
Vancouver-Quilchena MLA Dallas Brodie, Peace River North MLA Jordan Kealy, and Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream MLA Tara Armstrong said that while they will sit as independents for the time being, they were exploring the idea of starting their own party.
During a press conference in Victoria on Monday, Brodie defended her comments on the lack of graves at residential school sites, and, per the CBC's Katie DeRosa, argued that the BC Conservatives had been "infiltrated" by "woke liberals."
When asked whether more MLAs would join her, she claimed there were "whispers" from within the party.
Brodie was booted from caucus for "mocking" residential school survivors, prompting Kealy and Armstrong to ditch the party themselves.
"I spoke truth because it matters," she said in a news release. "I will never back down from it. It is an indisputable fact that the number of bodies discovered at Kamloops is zero. The truth is a threat to powerful vested interests in the multi-billion dollar reconciliation industry."
Armstrong said her decision to leave the party was motivated by more than just a desire to stand in solidarity with Brodie.
"I'm standing up for every one of my constituents and every British Columbian who is being sold out by David Eby and John Rustad," she declared. "People are struggling to pay for the basic necessities of life in British Columbia. Our prosperity is strangled by taxes and red tape and now we face a tariff attack from the world's two largest economies."
Kealy was more direct, arguing that Rustad "doesn't have the courage or the integrity to defeat the NDP or to fight for the people in my constituency."
BC Conservative leader John Rustad announced Friday that Brodie had been expelled from caucus, noting that while she was technically correct on the issue of graves, "she went far beyond that" during an appearance on a podcast with former professor Frances Widdowson, in which the MLA "belittled" those who treat lived experience as evidence.
"I guess there's a person in our party who's indigenous," Brodie said, referring to House Leader and Chilliwack-Cultus Lake MLA Á’a:líya Warbus. "She was super angry and went to town and joined the NDP to call me out."
Brodie went on to argue that it was of utmost importance to promote the truth, "not his truth, her truth, my grandmother's truth ... it's gotta be the truth." These words she delivered in what Rustad referred to as "belittling" and "childlike voices."
"They need to decide whether they're going to be in favour of truth, or social pressure," she said of those in power, suggesting that those in her party who she deemed to have chosen the latter "belong in the NDP."
Rustad said it was "when [Brodie] started talking in a childlike voices, belittling the horrific experience that survivors and families had gone through" that she crossed the line.
"I just felt that was just that was so insensitive and so beyond the pale that I just could not find a way to be able to come back from that," he added.
More to come...
