Weekly Writ 12/11: B.C. Conservatives look to post-Rustad future
Plus, how many seats would each federal party win if an election were held today?
Welcome to the Weekly Writ, a round-up of the latest federal and provincial polls, election news and political history that lands in your inbox every Thursday morning.
Finally accepting that the turmoil within his caucus was untenable, John Rustad resigned last week as leader of the B.C. Conservatives, a party he took from nearly-nothing to nearly-government in little more than two years.
But it was inevitable that the rise of the Conservatives from a fringe party to a government-in-waiting would come with a change at the top. Because, for all his accomplishments in the whirlwind year that was 2024 in B.C. politics, Rustad was in many ways a leader who was installed by default.
Before he took over the Conservatives, the party had no MLAs in the legislature and no reason to believe they’d soon elect one. Rustad had been ejected from the B.C. Liberal caucus and was offered the leadership by a party that was only registering in the polls thanks to the power of the federal brand. In the 2020 election, the B.C. Conservatives had managed 1.9% of the vote. They hadn’t hit double-digits in vote share or elected a single MLA since the 1970s. Fundraising was anemic. They didn’t have anything to lose in offering the job to Rustad at the time.
Now that the party has not only a lot more to lose but a whole lot to gain, the question that it faces is who it will choose to take the party forward — and, just maybe, bring it back to the halls of power.
Before we delve into what this race means for British Columbia (and the federal scene), here’s what’s in this instalment of the Weekly Writ:
More on the B.C. Conservative race, plus news on a near-upset in Monday’s byelection in Prince Edward Island. There’s also more trouble on the horizon for the Quebec Liberals and some leadership changes in Nova Scotia and Alberta.
Polls show little change in voting intentions from where things stood on election night, though seat projections suggest the Liberals could lose a few in B.C. Plus, we have polling numbers for premiers and opposition leaders from coast to coast, a quartet of federal riding polls and a duo of new polls on the pipeline.
#EveryElectionProject: “Pint-sized” Steuart wins the 1971 Saskatchewan Liberal leadership.
Upcoming milestone for Mark Carney (already!).
There’s no doubt that the Conservatives under Rustad had an impressive showing in the 2024 election. They won 44 seats and 43.3% of the vote, coming only a few thousand votes short of winning outright themselves. It was the party’s best result in nearly a century.