Thursday December 4, 2025 | VICTORIA, BC [Posted at 10:51 am | Updated 10:59 & 11:33 am & 12:34 pm PT]
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
The leader who built the Conservative Party of BC from two MLAs to a near-majority in November 2024 election is no longer in the top job.
John Rustad (MLA for Nechako Lakes – elected as a BC Liberal in 2005, 2009, 2013, 2017, and 2020, and as a BC Conservative in 2024) was pushed aside by the BC Conservative caucus yesterday. Today Rustad conceded to resignation.
Yesterday a majority of the BC Conservative caucus had said ‘they lost confidence’ in him.
The Conservative Party of BC interim leader is Trevor Halford, MLA for Surrey-White Rock.
Rustad did the near-impossible in bringing a near-nothing party into the position of — numerically at least — being a strong Official Opposition party.
But today he said that stepping down from the leadership role is “the right thing to do as opposed to fighting this thing out”. Rustad told media today that the most important thing is to “bring common sense and decent government” back to BC. He said the NDP is “a mess”.
Rustad will stay on as MLA.
Halford today:
“British Columbians deserve much better than what they’re getting right now,” said Halford as a comment on the BC NDP government, in a media scrum at the BC Legislature this morning. He referred a few times to the BC Conservatives as now being “a government in waiting”.
“I’m not going to hold back,” said Halford today. “We have a service to British Columbians — that they know where we stand and more importantly where the NDP don’t stand.”
He says he doesn’t see ‘left and right’ in politics, only what is right to do. As he said that, MLAs standing behind him nodded in agreement — showing the support Halford has for now in leading the party in a new direction.
Halford says his focus will be on the BC Conservatives being ‘ready to go’ — for the Spring session and a future election.
Rustad’s accomplishments:
In the process of creating the renewed BC Conservatives as a viable political influence, John Rustad dismantled the former BC Liberal Party (renamed as BC United) and saw a few longtime MLAs (some having been cabinet ministers) left behind.
But in his broader goal to get the party onto the political map — by pulling from every possible direction that was right of the NDP — Rustad collected around him a varied crew of shipmates that were barely on any shared pages as to policy or direction for the party.
The main aim of most of the people who got elected as BC Conservative MLAs last year was being part of a bandwagon of ‘win at any political cost’. The primary goal was to try and topple the BC NDP success last year — and they nearly succeeded, in that BC NDP Leader David Eby (who returned as Premier in November 2024) struggled to form a majority (falling back on an old Horgan move to loop in the BC Greens).
Five MLAs have already moved themselves out of the BC Conservative party — two subsequently forming a new party called OneBC and three now sitting as an independents: Jordan Kealy, Peace River North; Amelia Boultbee, Penticton-Summerland; and Elenore Sturko, Surrey-Cloverdale. That has left the BC Conservatives with their current 39 MLAs.
There is some question as to the reason of so-called ‘professional incapacitation’ that the BC Conservatives used to oust Rustad — that’s a new variation on ‘incapacitation’ as one of three ways to remove a leader (the other two being either death or a failed leadership vote).
About Halford:
Halford was first elected in the 2020 provincial election by a margin of just 224 votes ahead of the BC NDP candidate (the NDP may have won if the BC Greens had not split the left vote).
Halford was elected as a BC Liberal in 2020 but crossed the floor to the BC Conservatives on September 3, 2024.
Halford was re-elected in 2024 with a slightly larger margin of 1,968 votes over the BC NDP candidate; there was no BC Green candidate in 2024.
Fall session:
The 2025 fall session of the BC Legislative Assembly was to conclude today December 4, but wrapped up one day early.
A few times this session there were remarks from the Premier and the Attorney General as to ‘how did this-or-that get into the BC Legislature’ — with reference to the extreme right-wing views of OneBC MLAs (who were originally elected as BC Conservative MLAs under Rustad’s win at any cost strategy for the revived BC Conservatives).
The spring session will see MLAs reconvene in the Chamber in mid-February 2026.
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NEWS SECTIONS: BC CONSERVATIVES | 43rd PARLIAMENT OF BC