On the heels of OneBC's very public unravelling, Dallas Brodie sat down with the Western Standard to tell her side of the story.She vowed to keep the party going — if she can reach an agreement with her former colleagues to regain control..Brodie explained that in the aftermath of the party's implosion, her former chief of staff Tim Thielmann presented an offer. Either he, Tara Armstrong, and Paul Ratchford take the party and she leaves, or she takes it and they leave.She accepted the latter, and is awaiting confirmation from the others..Brodie said she's eager to hold on to OneBC even though it is not longer recognized as an official party in the legislature, expressing hope that BC Conservative MLAs "might still want a home to jump to" if they fall out of step with their new leader..Brodie claimed that at the centre of the drama was OneBC contractor Othman Mekhloufi, whose social media posts apparently lead to the formation of factions in support of and against him within the party..He had previously worked for the Conservative Party of Canada and the Conservative Party of British Columbia.."I was not aware of his controversial history," Brodie claimed. "I didn't know really anything about him."She explained that Mekhloufi's consultancy firm had been hired in July, and over the following months, she found out about things he'd said online..When asked where she felt Mekhloufi crossed a line, Brodie said it was a little bit of everything."Following Nazi groups, referring to Israel in quotations, referring to the ‘JQ’ … and also rating women online," she noted. "There's a lot."Among the groups he is alleged to have followed is the Dominion Society, which advocates for European-only immigration to Canada."I believe there needs to be some tweaking to immigration, but not what their talking about," she said. "I felt it was pulling us in a direction that was unhealthy for the party."In a statement to the Western Standard, a spokesperson from Mekhloufi's firm countered those claims."The idea that Mr. Mekhloufi (a non-White man) is a White supremacist is silly," they said. "No one is taking this seriously. Ms. Brodie is using Mr. Mekhloufi as a scapegoat to excuse that she was removed as Party Leader due to her unstable behavior. In truth, she was close to Mekhloufi and followed his social media attentively. Ms. Brodie can't provide a single post of Mekhloufi making a racist comment. She’s lying, and she’s defaming him."Thielmann also claimed that Brodie "praised and adopted Othman’s work on a host of issues, including immigration and the defence of our ancestors from decolonial oppression narrative, arguing that her statement "was an attempt to justify [her] own workplace behaviour and removal as party leader by publicly targeting a staffer with a cancellation campaign.""Your statement is false and defamatory, as well as an exhibition of extremely poor judgement for an MLA to malign multiple staff members publicly," he added. "Othman expressly endorsed civic nationalism — not blood and soil nationalism — both in internal chats and in the office. These are egregious false aspersions, to cast so recklessly in public. It's what I might expect from deranged leftist activists.".Since being delisted as an official party in the legislature, there have been widespread calls for OneBC to tell the public exactly how they used taxpayer money for their documentary and party operations.."If the people want to know how much was spent, sure," Brodie said. "I don't have a problem telling everything that was spent in our office, down to what we spent on a coffee maker."She noted that she didn't have the numbers readily available.For a tweet-by-tweet timeline of how things went down, click here..BREAKDOWN: The very public implosion of OneBC."I wish Dallas Brodie the best in her future endeavors," Mekhloufi wrote in a statement to the Western Standard, "and I hope she receives the help she needs."
