Has rise of the right primed B.C. politics for a party that breaks the binary?

VICTORIA — Former British Columbia premier Christy Clark says voters in the province face a choice between the “worst government in B.C. history” and an opposition headed by an unelectable leader.

“She cannot win an election,” Clark said of Conservative Party of B.C. Leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay. “She is too kooky.”

Clark isn’t alone in making a calculation that the ascendancy of conservatives like Findlay — who has promised a government guided by “faith, family, and freedom” — leaves the B.C. political map wide open to a new centre-right force.

Political allegiances are being redrawn, with a series of departures from both flanks of the Opposition and MLA Amelia Boultbee switching sides entirely to join the NDP caucus this month.

But others elected under the Conservative banner aren’t ready to go that far, and how the factions coalesce could reshape the political landscape again, as the collapse of the once-mighty BC Liberal brand continues to reverberate.

Independent MLA Elenore Sturko was elected a BC Liberal, a party that changed its name to BC United, but she jumped to the Conservatives before the last election.

After being elected under that banner, she was thrown out of the caucus last year, and now she is among hundreds of thousands of British Columbians without a political home, she said.

“We don’t want to support the NDP because of their disastrous policies that have really hurt the province over what is now almost a decade of running this province, but can’t and would never support the Conservative Party under the leadership of Kerry Lynne Findlay,” said Sturko, a social liberal but fiscal conservative.

Sturko said Findlay had made it very clear with her first appointments that she favoured “far-right purity tests” over experience.

Repeated approaches to interview Findlay were unsuccessful.

Into the calculation has emerged CentreBC.

The new party seeks to break the binary of provincial politics, but it faces multiple barriers to becoming anything more than a niche party, including money and an abundance of polarization.

Founded a little more than a year ago by former BC United legislator Karin Kirkpatrick, CentreBC last week appointed another BC Liberal veteran Mike Bernier as its new leader.

The 2024 collapse of their party — which had disastrously rebranded as BC United — allowed the Conservative Party of B.C. to emerge as the main alternative to the B.C. NDP under Premier David Eby.

The Conservatives came within three seats of governing, but postelection infighting whittled away the caucus and preceded the ejection of John Rustad as leader.

The narrow leadership vote of Findlay came after a campaign that saw the contenders broadly unified on concerns about B.C.’s budget deficit and private property rights.

Instead, the campaign focused on ideological battles that have persisted long since Findlay’s May 30 victory.

When federal Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre was at the Calgary Stampede this month, he congratulated Findlay — but could not resist a dig at Caroline Elliott, the more-centrist contender Findlay defeated 51 per cent to 49 per cent after four rounds of voting.

Findlay’s win, Poilievre said, was “big win against liberal lobbyists from out east.”

POLITICS WITHOUT ‘PURITY TESTS’

Bernier says CentreBC sees itself as a “socially progressive, fiscally responsible choice,” capable of building a “broad coalition of builders and doers,” but free of “purity tests.”

The former mayor of Dawson Creek and cabinet minister under Clark said in an interview that he wanted to give British Columbians another genuine option.

“I think they are upset because they really only had two real options in the last election,” he said. “From what I heard from a lot of people, is that they were almost forced to vote for the best of the worst.”

Bernier said British Columbia is home to a lot of “disenfranchised voters,” including federal Liberals, and some New Democrats. “I have had people from the Green Party contacting me, and even some people who cancelled their Conservative membership and joined our party, mostly because they are saying that finally there is a moderate option.”

Clark agrees with the premise of CentreBC, saying British Columbians who don’t want to vote for the NDP deserve more choice than an opposition that “makes the separatists in Alberta start to look moderate.”

She said the B.C. Conservatives had become “exclusionary” under Findlay.

But while she praised Bernier as a “sensible choice” to lead CentreBC, and a “voice of conscience” in her caucus on social and personal rights, she was unsure if the party would emerge as best opponent to the NDP.

“My prediction is that there will be a centre-right, economic-focused party that emerges before the next election that will be a credible alternative for everybody, who just wants to get on with creating jobs and economic opportunity,” Clark said. “I don’t know if that will be CentreBC or somebody else. Maybe it will be 10 different parties coming together.”

Sturko said Bernier was a “principled individual” she respects.

“He is a person who stands up for the values of people who are centre,” she said.

But she also saw challenges facing Bernier.

“So, if you are building a house for people who are politically homeless, you need a solid foundation.”

That means memberships and money, she said. “Because the foundation of any political party truly is its membership, and it runs on donations,” she said. “That is the bottom-line.”

Records from Elections BC show CentreBC received $44,252 in donations in 2025 and ran a surplus of just over $20,400.

Sturko said Bernier was capable of building on that foundation, based in part on his personality as a unifying figure who could work with political opponents.

“People are getting tired of populism,” Sturko said. “They are getting tired of the mudslinging and the nastiness … whether it’s far-right extremism or far-left extremism, I think people would welcome someone who is pragmatic and, frankly, a nice person.”

Angelo Isidorou is the executive director of the Conservative Party of B.C., who helped Rustad take it from a party that won less than 2 per cent of the vote in 2020 to the brink of power in 2024.

He believes such a meteoric rise would be a tough act for CentreBC to follow.

“It’s incredibly difficult to build a party from scratch,” he said. “It’s particularly difficult to legitimize the party, particularly, when you don’t have any seats.”

The Conservatives got around that hurdle when Rustad, then sitting as an Independent, joined the party in 2023. It then gained official status when Bruce Banman defected from BC United.

“British Columbia has a culture of NDP and not-the-NDP, and we ultimately saw that consolidation even in the last election,” Isidorou said, referring to the demise of BC United.

British Columbians, he said, “like binary choices,” reflecting B.C.’s first-past-the-post electoral system

Isidorou said he did not see CentreBC as a threat to his party, pointing out that both Bernier and Kirkpatrick ran as Independents in 2024, only to be defeated by Conservatives.

And even some of those who once stood against the Conservatives fear another factor — vote-splitting.

Kevin Acton, the mayor of Lumby in the Okanagan, said it is why he won’t support CentreBC.

Acton, who ran as an Independent in Vernon-Lumby in 2024, didn’t win. But he did finish with about 15 per cent of the vote, far beyond the 1.7 per cent margin of victory for the NDP’s Hawinder Sandhu over the Conservative candidate.

Acton said he did not really believe vote-splitting was a problem until that outcome, which helped to give the NDP its one-seat majority.

“Do I think there is room for Centre BC? Absolutely. Do I think they will make it there before the next election? I really don’t think so,” said Acton.

“That’s a pretty hard grind. Mike’s a great guy, but you are talking about building a party from scratch to be ready for the next election. I just don’t think that is going to happen.”

Bernie said his party will work within the first-past-the-post system and “field good candidates across the province.”

No party has a presumptive lock on votes, he said.

“It’s about giving people the option.”

But Acton, for his part, has already made his choice.

He said he would seek the local Conservative nomination at the next election.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 24, 2026.

Wolfgang Depner, The Canadian Press