The BC Conservative Leadership Race Ends Under a Cloud

The Conservative Party of BC leadership race is ending as it began, in controversy.

Seven days of voting started on the weekend, with a winner to be declared Saturday.

Last Wednesday, reporter Rob Shaw revealed that former MP Kerry-Lynne Findlay, a front-runner in the race, is under investigation by the federal election watchdog for breaking the rules in her failed campaign to retain her seat last year.

Shaw broke the story in Business in Vancouver.

The Commissioner of Canada Elections, he reported, is conducting interviews and requesting information relating to Findlay’s campaign.

“Our office received a complaint from Elections Canada alleging that a candidate’s campaign received approximately $75,000 in undeclared and unpaid services from a corporation, purportedly in exchange for promised federal contracts,” the senior investigator in the office wrote in a letter. “It is further alleged that approximately 50 individuals, described as appearing to be foreign nationals without legal status, were canvassing on behalf of the candidate.”

Although still unproven, they’re serious allegations about undermining democracy — particularly involving a person who wants to lead the official Opposition.

Findlay, a three-term MP for ridings in Richmond, Delta and White Rock, said she hadn’t been told of the investigation and had done nothing wrong. Her campaign said the letter could be a dirty trick by another candidate and threatened a lawsuit if the story was published.

But when the party tried to investigate to determine if she should be barred from the race, Findlay refused to participate. She has “not provided any substantive response or co-operated,” the Conservative Party of BC said.

Which says something about Findlay and the party. When a candidate doesn’t respect the party enough to respond to its questions, voters should wonder what’s going on.

Findlay is not alone in sparking controversy in the race, which was kicked off by the Dec. 4 ousting of leader John Rustad.

Yuri Fulmer announced he had unilaterally agreed to partner with OneBC and its sole MLA, Dallas Brodie, if he wins, including by not running Conservative candidates in five ridings to clear the way for the fringe party. In return, OneBC wouldn’t contest the remaining ridings. He also committed to a supply and confidence agreement that would allow OneBC to extract concessions from the Conservatives even if they win a majority.

What about people in those ridings who wanted to vote Conservative and might find the BC NDP distasteful and Brodie even worse? They would be out of luck. It was a bold, even reckless move from a candidate with no past political record.

Where do we stand?

Five candidates remain in the race: former BC Liberal cabinet minister Iain Black; former BC United party vice-president Caroline Elliott; Findlay; Fulmer; and Conservative MLA Peter Milobar.

The various campaign teams signed up 42,000 members in an effort to build their support, up from the 7,000 party members at the start of the campaign.

But before they could vote, as an anti-fraud measure, members had to verify their identity through a U.S. company.

More than one-third of the new recruits didn’t. Some likely objected to the requirement to upload digital identity information. More probably just didn’t bother. So far turnout among the remaining 26,000 eligible voters is good.

Elliott and Findlay are considered the leading candidates.

But the contest will be decided by a preferential ballot. Voters have the chance to rank all the candidates. The first choices will be counted and if no candidate gets 50 per cent support, the would-be leader with the lowest vote count will be dropped and their second choices allocated to those still in the race. That will continue until there’s a winner. (It’s always important to note that parties reject first past the post for selecting a leader but force voters to accept the flawed process in elections.)

At this point it’s hard to have any sense of how people ranked their second and third choices.

One prediction is safe. After Saturday night, the party will have a new leader — and the same bitter divisions that have plagued it since before the last election.