Please Advise! How Fast Can the BC Conservatives Deflate?

[Editor’s note: Steve Burgess is an accredited spin doctor with a PhD in Centrifugal Rhetoric from the University of SASE, situated on the lovely campus of PO Box 7650, Cayman Islands. In this space he dispenses PR advice to politicians, the rich and famous, the troubled and well-heeled, the wealthy and gullible.]

Dear Dr. Steve,

It was a wild week for Kerry-Lynne Findlay and the B.C. Conservatives. Six MLAs quit the party, and communications director Apollo Chung was fired after audio recordings emerged featuring an unidentified person describing government as an opportunity for large-scale theft. Then another leaked recording revealed Findlay offering a party position to any MLA who would step aside so she could run for a seat.

Has there ever been a week like this in B.C. political history?

Signed,

Gobsmacked

Dear GS,

It is crisis time in B.C. pundit world. There's been an explosion at the headline factory. Emergency rooms are filling up with reporters suffering journalistic whiplash. It's been so hectic, we haven't even had time to update our GPS maps from “Lake Ontario” to “Lake America.”

As of Thursday, six B.C. Conservative MLAs had left the caucus room in the past month, five last week alone. It was like Big Brother on fast-forward.

Findlay seems to have interpreted her narrow leadership victory as a licence to take a hard right over the curb, the boulevard, the sidewalk, and blow through stands of watermelons and oranges. But she is discovering a hard truth: being a party leader does not automatically make you a cult leader.

Donald Trump can get away with behaving like an insane pilot trying to crash Air America for the insurance money, because his MAGA followers are completely strapped in. Perhaps Findlay was fooled by that. She may have thought she could get away with calling a Conservative MLA a member of the Chinese Communist Party and saying another was compromised by having an Indigenous wife, because her role model has vomited up countless vile slurs without consequences. But where Trump's ugly insults have made Republicans cower, Findlay's have just made B.C. Conservatives leave. It's encouraging. Maybe American booze is what makes people crazy.

All of this, while riveting political theatre, paled before the main event. On Wednesday morning, Conservative Party of BC caucus communications director Apollo Chung was fired. Shortly afterward, Jas Johal aired an audio recording on his CKNW program.

The speaker on the recording is not identified. He is, however, a truly Shakespearean figure. As the Bard's Richard III says: “I am determined to prove a villain.” Ditto this dude.

Here are some highlights from the recording: “I don’t care about, like, saving the province and all that shit,” the man says. “Once we get government, you can do what the fuck you want.... I don’t walk away from money. We have the leader in our hands.... Minimum, I want half a million dollars for me.... We need to basically force all of them to make a fundraiser for us. And so we can steal everything.... That’s the objective, right? To monetize this whole thing.... It’s just stealing non-stop.”

And in closing, God bless you, and God bless our democracy. Balloon drop.

What a speech. It's the Griftersburg Address. It's the MAGA Carta. To be fair, this wasn't “saying the quiet part out loud”; it was “saying the quiet part quietly while some backstabbing weasel secretly records you.” So sneaky. Apparently you just can't trust people anymore.

So who was this mysterious captain of corruption, this chief of chiselling, this emperor of embezzlement (it could seem, allegedly)? Johal suggested it was Chung. That would explain the abrupt firing, and as Johal subsequently pointed out, Findlay didn't deny it. If it was indeed the Conservative communications director on that recording, give him credit — he certainly can communicate. We all understood him perfectly.

At the time Findlay announced Chung's firing, it seemed counterintuitive. No one talks about rats being fired from a sinking ship. Most of the Conservative departures have been desperate scrambles for the lifeboats. Plus, considering the clown castle that Findlay has been building, what could Chung possibly have done to be found unworthy? Buy a package of Rainbow Chips Ahoy? Start a caucus meeting with a land acknowledgment? Wear socks with sandals?

Findlay then caught a lucky break — attention was diverted from the outrageous alleged Conservative recording, by a different Conservative recording. This one starred Findlay herself speaking to caucus. At one point she tells her MLAs that anyone stepping aside so that the leader can run for a legislative seat will be rewarded with a senior adviser position.

Selling a political office is illegal. Was Findlay's proposal a crime? Is charity a crime? Wasn't it Jesus who said, “The generous will themselves be blessed, for they share their senior adviser jobs with the poor”? Something like that, for sure.

At any rate, Conservative MLA Reann Gasper did decide, out of the goodness of her heart, that two years representing the good people of Abbotsford-Mission was more than enough and announced she would resign, allowing Findlay to run for office. Will the office run from her? Will Findlay get elected and then quit the Conservatives after a dispute with Findlay? Will the victory cake be a Safeway bran muffin with one sad little candle?

Whether through firing or fleeing, the B.C. Conservative ranks are melting like a pocketed Popsicle. There are now 10 Independent MLAs in the legislature. As stars form from nebulous clouds of gas, a new party could well be taking shape before our eyes. Should the defections continue at the same rate, and should the defectors band together, this as-yet unformed party could even become the official Opposition. Prepare your resumé, Kerry-Lynne. Maybe you can apply for a job. If John Rustad doesn’t get there first.