Watching the BC Conservatives in action the past few months, it’s clear there are two competing movements inside that party: Those that want to do the work of the Opposition, and those fighting culture wars on things like pink shirts and residential schools.

The three MLAs that exited the Conservatives Friday fall firmly into the latter camp. And while their criticism of John Rustad as a feckless, cowardly leader might initially sting the party brass, many left within the caucus and party think the departure of the far-right extremists could actually end up being a moment Rustad could use to improve the future of the Conservatives.

Vancouver-Quilchena MLA Dallas Brodie was the first to exit Friday, after Rustad fired her for an online video mocking survivors of residential schools in a singsong voice for expressing “their truth” on deaths at Kamloops Indian Residential School when she contends no bodies have actually been found.

It wasn’t so much Brodie’s argument that got her ejected from caucus, with Rustad at various points over the last two weeks expending a great deal of his own political capital to defend her right to free speech.

It was Brodie’s odd behaviour behind-the-scenes, daring the leader to hold a vote to fire her, storming out of meetings and insulting colleagues publicly —at one point appearing to question the Indigenous heritage of house leader A’aliya........

© BIV