Findlay Steers BC Conservatives Hard Right to Her Party’s Peril

Even by B.C. standards, we’re in for a wild political ride with the leaders of the province’s two largest parties both looking like big liabilities.

New Conservative Party of BC Leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay is blowing up the compact that kept the BC Liberals in power through four elections.

And Premier David Eby’s approval ratings have plunged to levels that doom leaders without quick corrective action. (That’s a subject for a separate column.)

First, Findlay. Beginning in 2001, the BC Liberals won four elections in a row because of an alliance between federal Conservatives and Liberals who set aside their differences and worked together to defeat the NDP.

But Findlay — a former cabinet minister in the Stephen Harper government — is unabashedly in the federal Conservative camp.

Last week on X, Findlay posted that she was “deeply honoured by the endorsement of my friend and colleague, federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.”

But the endorsement isn’t necessarily political gold: British Columbia had more federal Liberal voters than Conservatives in the 2025 election, and Poilievre and his party have been steadily losing support.

And it’s a clear poke in the eye for potential B.C. Conservative voters who supported Mark Carney and the Liberals.

Findlay has also gone full culture-war conservative. Her victory speech kicked it off.

“In our national anthem, we cry out to God to make our land glorious and free,” Findlay said. “Faith, family and freedom. That’s what it’s all about. God bless British Columbia and God bless all of you.”

British Columbians appear to disagree. A Leger poll this month found the top issues for British Columbians are housing prices and affordability, health care and the economy. And more than half of us claim no religious affiliation.

Findlay also signalled her direction for the party by appointing Chris Delaney as her chief of staff.

Delaney may be familiar to people with long memories. Two decades ago, he held various roles with right-wing parties — Reform, BC First, BC Unity and an earlier version of the Conservative Party of BC. He also played a major role, with Bill Tieleman and campaign leader Bill Vander Zalm, in collecting 700,000 signatures to kill the BC Liberals’ attempt to bring in a harmonized sales tax, resulting in Gordon Campbell’s resignation.

Delaney was a big Vander Zalm fan. In 1999, he was president of Reform BC and introduced the former Social Credit premier as a byelection candidate in Delta South.

“We heard this voice when Abraham Lincoln accepted the call to free the slaves by speaking the truth,” he said. “We heard this voice when Mahatma Gandhi led his people out from under the tyranny of an imperial conqueror. We heard this voice when Martin Luther King confounded the enemies of justice.”

“Today, right here in B.C., the voice of a leader has emerged. I thank God for sending us a man who is prepared to speak the truth. I thank God for sending us a great leader. I thank God for Bill Vander Zalm.”

That quote might be amusing. But some of Delaney’s other past positions should alarm centre-right voters looking for a party that focuses on fiscal responsibility.

During the 2001 election campaign, Delaney led the BC Unity Party and outlined its platform to the Vancouver Sun. He promised to abolish the Indian Act (which isn’t actually possible since it’s a federal law), eliminate reserves and give each status member $250,000 in cash and land to extinguish all Indigenous rights. He promised a flat tax, ending a system based on big earners paying more, and would give parents education funding for them to keep or spend as they like on private or public schools.

Delaney was also fiercely anti-abortion, promising to close abortion clinics and to consider a referendum on ending public funding of abortion.

People change of course. But those are beliefs that will scare a lot of voters.

It seems reckless for Findlay to blow up the centre-right coalition that worked so well.

There’s no need for Findlay to fret much about competition from the right. The camps of OneBC’s Dallas Brodie and Independent MLA Tara Armstrong are engaged in a constant online flame war, and both live in a fantasyland where Indigenous rights and title don’t exist and trans rights are a bigger issue than housing, health care and affordability.

But the threat of a moderate party running in the next election is very bad news for Findlay and the Conservatives. A meeting earlier this month explored the idea of reviving the BC Liberal brand.

That is a non-starter under Elections BC rules, but other options exist. And a serious centre-right party focused on the NDP’s record and issues that matter to voters could rule out any chance of a Conservative win.