The leader of the BC Conservative Party has promised to lead his party through the provincial election later this year.
Speculation about a possible BC United and BC Conservative merger kicked into high gear this week with a Global News story that reported Port Coquitlam mayor Brad West was being courted to lead a united right-of-centre party.
That narrative was debunked shortly after the story was published by BC Conservative leader John Rustad and Brad West himself.
In a statement to X/Twitter, Rustad said he approached BC United months ago about working together to defeat the BC NDP but was told to “f*** off.”
“So we worked even harder to build our party up and defeat the NDP on our own,” he said.
“We built this party with hard work piece by piece — now, people want to jump into the drivers seat and kick out our grassroots. Not going to happen.”
The BC Conservatives have leapfrogged the BC United in the polls with the current Official Opposition facing a “political wipeout,” said some pollsters.
“I’ve promised thousands of British Columbians and our thousands of grassroots members — who took the initiative to sign themselves up — to lead this party through the next election,” Rustad said.
Some in the business community reportedly have been urging the two parties to work together to avoid vote splitting that could deliver the BC NDP a large majority.
Brad West, meanwhile, says he has no plans to enter B.C. politics at this time.
“If that ever changes, you’ll hear from me,” he said in a post on X.
338 Canada, which is an aggregate of all recent polls, projects the BC NDP will capture 41% of the vote and 62 seats, followed by the BC Conservatives at 30% and 28 seats. The projection suggests the BC United 16% means they will be lucky to pick up a single seat.
