When Bruce Banman crossed the floor to join John Rustad in the B.C. Conservatives in 2023, it was a key moment that both conferred official party status and set the Conservatives on a path that brought them to the verge of power the next year, their 44 MLAs filling official Opposition benches. Now he doubts whether new leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay can even win a byelection next month to find her own place in the legislature, as she faces a caucus exodus that grew to include former Conservative house leader A’a:liya Warbus on Monday. Banman, now among seven MLAs who have left the Conservative ranks this month, was scathing about the direction of the party in an interview on Monday, calling out those around Findlay for creating a “purity test” of whether MLAs are “hard right enough,” for celebrating the resignation of colleague Peter Milobar, and for shrinking the party as they “frolic on the fringe.” He singled out Findlay’s chief of staff, Chris Delaney, as someone who would rather maintain a right-wing ideological standards than win elections. “I’ve tried talking with that gentleman. There is no talking with him,” said Banman, who urged Conservative MLAs to quit the party too, regardless of their political leanings, when he left the caucus on Thursday. “It’s like, ‘Let me explain to you why I’m right and why you’re wrong.’ It’s this classic thing of, ‘I would rather be right than win.’” The seven recent resignations have added to a series of other departures, reducing the current Opposition caucus to 30 members. Amid the turmoil, Findlay is slated to run in a byelection in Abbotsford-Mission on Sept. 26. She did not have a seat in the legislature when she won the Conservative leadership on May 30. “All that (NDP Premier) David Eby has done is bought her a 26-day reprieve,” Banman said of the weekend’s byelection call. “Because at the end of that, when I suspect she loses, because as I said, I think she’s unelectable, maybe then she’ll do the right thing and resign.” Milobar had triggered the flight from the Conservative caucus when he quit on Aug. 14, which Banman noted had prompted celebrations from some in the party who saw him as too liberal. The longtime BC Liberal, who joined the Conservatives ahead of the 2024 election, had cited a lack of “ideological alignment” with Findlay. “When Peter Milobar left, one of the strongest finance critics that we’ve known in a long time, it was like ‘good riddance to that because he was nothing but a liberal,’” Banman said. He said that was “not how you build a movement.” “You don’t make it smaller by continuing to frolic off into the fringe. That’s how you destroy a movement.” Milobar was followed last week by Ian Paton, Rosalyn Bird, Teresa Wat, Brennan Day and Banman, then Warbus on Monday. In a separate interview on Monday, Warbus partly attributed her decision to leave to the cancellation of a caucus meeting to discuss the near-daily parade of legislators who have departed the Opposition. She said there had been an “unacceptable” lack of communication from Findlay to the caucus, and not “the same level of fluid interaction between the leadership team and the staff and MLAs” that she expected. “I think the main example I can give is finding out from a post on X or from media that a main director is being fired, or that critical staff is being let go, or that there are important meetings and decisions being made at a party level,” Warbus said. She contrasted that with communications under former leader John Rustad, saying he had once called a 6 a.m. caucus meeting to tell MLAs something face to face. “That’s how that operated then. That is not the same thing, the same way, that things are operating today.” Findlay, who has said she will focus on “faith, family and freedom,” was narrowly elected party leader. She did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but last week disputed that she had shifted the party’s policy stances. Warbus, a member of the Sto:Lo First Nation, had been one of the Opposition’s most prominent legislators as its only Indigenous MLA and as former house leader. She said she had not decided whether to join any party formed by former Conservatives; Paton and Milobar have said they hope to have a new party running by the fall sitting of the legislature. Warbus and others have also expressed concern about how Reann Gasper came to resign her seat of Abbotsford-Mission to allow Findlay to run. Gasper has taken a paid position as Findlay’s deputy chief of staff. It is illegal under the Criminal Code to negotiate a reward or benefit related to resignation from political office. Findlay had said last week that suggestions a leaked audio recording showed she illegally offered jobs to MLAs, in exchange for resigning so she could stand in a byelection, were “preposterous.” RCMP said they were aware of the purported recording of Findlay addressing Conservative legislators, but “does not confirm or deny any investigation, or the identity of any person who may be subject to an investigation, until such time as charges have been laid.” Banman said he expected more people to leave the Conservative caucus, though he would not name anyone, and said many would consider coming back without Findlay at the helm. “They would come back. They believe in this party. They believe in fiscal responsibility. They believe in many of the issues. But it has just gone too far. And it’s like, sometimes it just seems the party is hell-bent on destroying itself.” This report by Ashley Joannou and Chuck Chiang, The Canadian Press, was first published Aug. 31, 2026.
