Corey Brooks is the president of the BC Conservatives' Burnaby North Riding Association.For twenty tumultuous hours between December 3rd and 4th, the Conservative Party of British Columbia had two leaders. Confused? So was everyone else. While most observers saw the standoff play out publicly, the true fight was shrouded in thick layers of technical legal and constitutional precedent.Let’s start by giving an account of the events leading up to John Rustad's departure. Mere weeks after he passed his Leadership Review with 71% approval, I noticed concerning behaviour from his office. Principled conservative staffers, who had found jobs in caucus, were suddenly fired. MLAs started leaving left and right.This situation was having a huge effect on the local riding associations, and we saw plummeting engagement and donations. As concerned members of the party, a group of Burnaby-New Westminster-Tri Cities Riding Association executives decided to sound the alarm by writing to caucus, urging MLAs to stand up and demand a change in leadership.However, this proved to be more complicated than it sounded.The complications stem from the fact that Canadian political parties, which have existed in the BC context since 1903, are double-headed beasts. One head is the party, which is a private club, incorporated under BC’s Societies Act – legally, no different to a tennis club. Members of these clubs are free to organize themselves and to collectively craft their own constitutions. Parties typically organize themselves into regional boards called Riding Associations..The other head of this beast is a much older construct called the caucus, where elected MLAs (who happen to be members of the aforementioned party) behave according to the Canadian Constitution and to unwritten parliamentary conventions. Most of the time, these two heads move with a common purpose. The party mobilizes during campaigns to support the election of MLAs and in turn, the MLAs ensure the party’s ideas are represented in the Legislature. However there are times when the two sides diverge, and we as a party haven’t taken the time to sort out a set of rules for these situations.John Rustad, like all leaders, actually occupied two positions: leader of the party (the private club), and leader of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition (the Conservative caucus).By convention, in Westminster-style Parliaments, the leader of a caucus serves at the pleasure of the members of that caucus (MPs or MLAs). In Canada, however, the mechanics of how this happens are unclear. While the Conservative party of Canada introduced the Reform Act to codify this convention, BC has no such act.Another important difference: the Reform Act guarantees that in the CPC, the caucus elects the caucus chair who conducts the meetings, whereas in the CPBC, the Chairperson is appointed by the leader..The ambiguity of the rules to remove a leader, plus the fact that the Chair is loyal to the leader rather than the MLAs, meant that in practice, they could not hold a vote in a caucus meeting. In the end, instead of voting, there were 20 secret affirmations delivered to the Clerk of the Legislature. This irrefutable proof that Rustad could no longer lead his MLAs allowed the party Board to convene a meeting and remove him as leader from the party side.The Board was forced to use the nuclear option of declaring him "professionally incapacitated," a term which will now live on in infamy. The only option more destructive would have been for the Board to strip Rustad of his CPBC membership — a truly unprecedented move that would have legally barred him from running as a Conservative in the next election.My prognosis is that this messy situation could have been avoided by adopting a set of rules such as those in the Reform Act. A full implementation would require passing a law in the Legislature, but just by using the party Constitution, we could achieve a baseline of necessary accountability. What we need are ways to enforce the age-old Westminster principle that the leader must have the continuous confidence of their MLAs. .Here are some ideas to consider:Automatic VacancyIf the caucus chair certifies to the Provincial Board that a majority of caucus votes to remove the leader, the position of leader of the party would immediately be deemed vacant. This clause would have saved the Board their creative interpretation of "incapacitation."Caucus-Triggered Leadership ReviewCaucus could force a Leadership Review with a lower threshold. In the UK, a 15% threshold is enough to trigger a secret ballot Leadership Vote between MLAs, and the Reform Act threshold is 20%. Since a Leadership Review (a vote by all CPBC members) is much more resource intensive, the threshold might have to be 30% or higher.A ban on Riding Association executives working in Constituency Offices. When I was soliciting RA signatures, I came across many executives who were unwilling to sign because they worked in the offices of the MLAs, and didn’t want their jobs to be affected. This is a conflict of interest: the caucus money (ultimately, taxpayer money) affecting the inner workings of the party. In my opinion, any member employed by the Legislature would be ineligible for the position of President, Vice-President, Treasurer, or Secretary.As we look ahead to an exciting Leadership Race, I encourage members to think critically about our party, and how it can be improved. The next Annual General Meeting, where we can codify these ideas, will be held in late spring. In the months ahead, we have work to do!Corey Brooks is the president of the BC Conservatives' Burnaby North Riding Association.
