Findlay made mistakes, but the revolt came entirely from MLAs who had opposed her leadership bid

Troy Media readers will likely remember Liz Truss’s astonishing rise and fall as prime minister of the United Kingdom. Everything she attempted during her 49-day leadership between September and October 2022 was disastrous.

Her decision to announce tax cuts and massive borrowing in a hastily arranged mini-budget was criticized as being unmanageable and fiscally irresponsible. Introducing the controversial Energy Price Guarantee when the U.K.’s energy costs were sky high was also condemned by reporters, columnists and political commentators on the right and left.

Truss’s resignation ended her tenure as the shortest-serving prime minister in British history. (She didn’t even outlast a highly publicized stunt involving a head of lettuce.) It quickly became a lesson in political futility that democratic countries needed to learn from — and never repeat on their own turf.

Some political commentators and columnists have recently suggested that Canada may have had its own Liz Truss moment. This refers to Kerry-Lynne Findlay’s astonishing rise and fall as leader of the B.C. Conservatives in just 113 days.

Is this an accurate assessment? No.

Findlay, like Truss, made mistakes and dealt with controversies in a short time span. The now-former B.C. Conservative leader lasted longer in her position than the former U.K. prime minister, although they both exited the scene pretty quickly.

Beyond this, Findlay was the victim of a political mutiny born out of frustration and hurt feelings when she became leader. That’s what this has been about since the beginning — and it’s a very different situation than what Truss faced.

The B.C. Conservative leadership race held on May 30 was extremely tight. Findlay beat Caroline Elliott on the fourth ballot by 4,696.51 to 4,514.49 points. That’s a razor-thin margin of 51 to 49 per cent.

Political leaders in our country have been able to unite heavily divided caucuses in the past. Andrew Scheer beat Maxime Bernier by a similar margin in the 2017 Conservative Party of Canada leadership election on the 13th ballot — 17,222 to 16,578 points, or 50.95 to 49.05 per cent. He was largely able to bring the party together as a cohesive unit for several years. The notable exception was Bernier, who left the Conservatives largely due to personal frustrations and hurt feelings and formed the People’s Party of Canada.

Sadly, that’s what happened to Findlay. Not because of Elliott, who remained loyal to the leader, party and movement, but due to the actions of others.

Some analysts and commentators have suggested that Findlay was largely at fault for not bringing the party together under a united vision. In the words of Conservative strategist Cole Hogan, “this is what a party does when it doesn’t know what it’s doing.” Some MLAs had issues with her leadership as well as her team. There were controversies related to language she reportedly used about some of her MLAs and their families during the leadership campaign and as party leader. Recordings of controversial remarks by staffers came to light. There was even an allegation of a private investigator being hired to spy on the caucus, which Findlay denied and said she was “unaware” of.

These matters didn’t help, to be sure. But there was a much bigger issue going on that had nothing to do with Findlay, and everything to do with a political mutiny.

None of the MLAs who either quit the B.C. Conservatives or were expelled the past four months — former party leader John Rustad, former interim party leader Trevor Halford, former leadership rival Peter Milobar, Brennan Day, Scott McInnis, Ian Paton, Á’a:líya Warbus, Donegal Wilson, Bruce Banman, Rosalyn Bird, Teresa Wat, Claire Rattée and Linda Hepner — supported Findlay’s leadership bid. Repeat, none of them.

Some analysts have chosen to either disregard or ignore this fact. Sorry, but you can’t do this with a straight face and a shrug of the shoulders. It doesn’t mean the defectors planned Findlay’s downfall from the very start. At the same time, their disappointment in watching Elliott, Milobar, Iain Black and Yuri Fulmer all go down to defeat seemingly triggered something.

Another point that’s worth mentioning? Milobar replaced former BC United MLA Mike Bernier as leader of CentreBC, a relatively new centre-right party, on Sept. 18. He was joined by Banman, Bird, Paton, Wilson, Warbus and Wat. One additional member was Elenore Sturko, a former B.C. Conservative MLA who had left the party during Rustad’s leadership and had been sitting as an independent.

Milobar, who finished last in the B.C. Conservative leadership race and was the first one to leave the caucus during Findlay’s leadership, has therefore found a way to potentially lead a different party in the next provincial election. While that may not have been his game plan a few months ago, it’s a twist in the story that you can’t readily ignore.

It was suggested by Amy Hamm, a fellow National Post columnist, that Findlay was “happily shrinking the Conservative tent to an unelectable size.” Why? To establish ideological consistency and alignment, one assumes. In my view, Findlay was actually trying to quell a political mutiny that was largely created by now-former MLAs and others who opposed her leadership bid. The pushback from her caucus was pretty self-serving in nature. While I agree with Hamm that the B.C. Conservatives need to build a big political tent to win government, it was impossible for Findlay to achieve this when certain team members were undermining her at every turn.

What’s done is done. Findlay has resigned. Lorne Doerkson has been named the interim leader. There’s plenty of chatter that NDP Premier David Eby will call a snap election this week. It could crush the right-of-centre vote and lead to a larger NDP government, or it could backfire and create a government led by the B.C. Conservatives, CentreBC — or a right-leaning coalition.

One thing is for certain. Findlay’s short, difficult tenure as B.C. Conservative leader wasn’t a carbon copy of Truss’s short, difficult tenure as U.K. prime minister, thank goodness.

Michael Taube is a political commentator, Troy Media syndicated columnist and former speechwriter for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He holds a master’s degree in comparative politics from the London School of Economics, lending academic rigour to his political insights.