B.C. Conservatives face questionable list of new members amid leadership review

A party review of John Rustad’s leadership is under scrutiny due to the recent and questionable registration of thousands of new members.

The B.C. Conservatives are facing mounting pressure to address a sudden surge in more than 2,000 new members using unusual contact information.

A copy of a document shows that around 2100 new B.C. Conservative members suddenly signed up to vote in the leadership review of John Rustad in Kelowna. The emails and phone numbers associated with the names use email addresses ending with @getcloudmail.co, and many use phone numbers with 10 digits of the same number, such as 2222222222.

One source explained that two of the people named are no longer alive and that the memberships were paid for by three credit cards.

The B.C. Conservative Party leadership process has been ongoing for months and is supposed to be complete one week from today. This alleged scandal sparked fireworks at a caucus meeting on Friday.

Sources told CTV News that Rustad was asked to leave the meeting as caucus discussed his leadership.

The source says that during that same meeting, Rustad advised that the list of new members had been deleted.

B.C. Conservative Kamloops Centre MLA, Peter Milobar, told reporters on Monday that he does not discuss what goes on inside a caucus room but acknowledged the reports are troubling.

“I haven’t seen any documents or anything of that nature that are being referenced out there right now,” said Milobar.

“But certainly, I have some concerns in terms of making sure that we are as a B.C. Conservative caucus always functioning at the highest level of integrity and always making sure that the public has their faith in us.”

CTV News also obtained a screenshot of an email from Rustad to caucus after the meeting, apologizing for spreading a rumour and embarrassing an individual for having a relationship with someone in the Conservative office.

The leadership vote is taking place on Thursday.

CTV News has also learned it has been moved to a bigger venue to accommodate an influx of new, legitimate, members.