Lorne Doerkson was named interim leader of the BC Conservatives in September. A month later, he was elected premier.ETHAN CAIRNS/The Canadian Press
In the months leading up to David Eby’s snap election call, chaos reigned in the BC Conservative Party.
It was plagued by staff dismissals, MLA defections, damaging leaks of internal conversations, separate probes by the RCMP and the elections watchdog into alleged political inducements, and – amid the mayhem – a leader unable to calm her dwindling caucus as it sought answers.
Peter Milobar was the first domino to fall, quitting the Conservative caucus to sit as an independent in mid-August.
“You could tell that this was going to just keep spiralling out of control,” Mr. Milobar, who was re-elected last weekend as Kamloops Centre MLA, told The Globe at the time.
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Over the next month, a dozen other MLAs either quit or were expelled by the new leader, Kerry-Lynne Findlay, fuelling speculation that Mr. Eby, then the NDP leader and B.C. premier, would call an election to capitalize on his ravaged rivals.
As the pressure on her mounted to right the Conservative ship, it became increasingly clear that was unlikely.
Ms. Findlay’s resignation on Sept. 20 capped months of turmoil that threatened to squander the party’s hard-fought gains in popularity. Her departure cleared the path for new leader Lorne Doerkson and catalyzed a remarkable reversal of fortunes that would carry the Conservatives all the way to victory and a majority government.
The Globe and Mail spoke with more than a dozen Conservative politicians, staffers and strategists to piece together the days leading up to the Sept. 22 election call and ensuing campaign.
In mid-September, delegates at the annual Union of BC Municipalities convention, rankled by the prospect of overlapping provincial and municipal elections, passed an emergency resolution urging Mr. Eby to hold off. Mr. Eby said he would “take the resolution under advisement.”
That same Wednesday, Sept. 16, the Conservative caucus held an emergency meeting.
MLA Claire Rattée said the next day she was one of 10 signatories on a letter urging Ms. Findlay to step down. A defiant Ms. Findlay told the municipalities convention that she was “not going anywhere,” and on Sept. 18 expelled Ms. Rattée, Trevor Halford and John Rustad, the long-time Northern B.C. MLA who led the Conservatives to within three seats of forming government in the 2024 election.
“There’s no room for internal power struggles or vanity projects. If your priority is building the movement, and supporting the Conservative Party of B.C., you are welcome,” Ms. Findlay wrote in a post on X.
Then-BC Conservative Leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay speaks in Vancouver on Sept. 17, days before her resignation.Rich Lam/The Canadian Press
But behind the scenes, Ms. Findlay was already negotiating severance pay with the party before she would agree to leave, according to a member of the campaign team. The Globe is not naming the person, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
Ms. Findlay did not respond to The Globe’s requests for comment this week.
When Ms. Findlay’s inevitable resignation did happen, strategists and the caucus immediately began floating names for her potential replacement: MLA Harman Bhangu; Mr. Halford, the party’s former interim leader; Conservative MP Aaron Gunn; and former provincial leadership hopeful Iain Black.
Caroline Elliott, who had narrowly lost the leadership race to Ms. Findlay four months earlier, said she received calls from people “just assuming she’d be jumping in.” But she thought Mr. Doerkson was the perfect candidate, in part because, as a past supporter of Mr. Milobar’s failed leadership bid, he had the best chance at bringing the Conservative defectors back into the fold. Mr. Milobar had since become leader of the nascent CentreBC party, bringing with him seven former Conservative MLAs.
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That afternoon, long-time conservative pollster Dimitri Pantazopoulos arrived home to Vancouver and immediately called Mr. Milobar to discuss how CentreBC might capitalize on the chaos to become the viable option for right-wing voters in the province. A merger with the Conservatives wasn’t ruled out either, Mr. Pantazopoulos told The Globe this week.
A marathon caucus meeting was held that night and resulted in a letter to the board supporting Mr. Doerkson as interim leader, signed by more than half the party’s 29 MLAs at the time. According to Conservative caucus chair and MLA Jody Toor, this included Brent Chapman, then the MLA for Surrey South, and also the husband of Ms. Findlay.
Kiel Giddens, who was re-elected as Prince George-Mackenzie MLA last weekend, said Mr. Doerkson had long been “a leader in the caucus room” and didn’t have the baggage of past leadership hopefuls.
Mr. Doerkson takes photos with his supporters after his victory speech on election night, Oct. 24.Justine Beaulieu-Poudrier/The Globe and Mail
Mr. Doerkson, meanwhile, learned of the developments on a layover in Amsterdam while returning from a conference in South Africa. He accepted the position, recognizing the stakes of the imminent election, and began making calls the moment he stepped off the plane in Vancouver.
The next day, Sept. 21, Mr. Doerkson met with Mr. Milobar and Mr. Pantazopoulos in Vancouver. They crafted a reunification proposal that the two leaders would present to their respective caucuses the next morning.
“It’s important to recognize that when people left the caucus, myself and others, it wasn’t because there was this big rift between people within the caucus room,” Mr. Milobar said in an interview this week. “It was really around leadership, leadership decisions and electoral viability.”
Mr. Doerkson also met with Katy Merrifield, a political operative who had served as communications director to former B.C. premier Christy Clark, former Alberta premier Jason Kenney and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre. As well, she had managed leadership campaigns for both Mr. Poilievre and former BC Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson.
Katy Merrifield became the BC Conservatives’ campaign manager. She says the team scrambled to recruit people for fundraising, communications and other roles.Jennifer Gauthier/The Globe and Mail
Conservative Party members approached Ms. Merrifield about managing the campaign, but she was hesitant, with a new private-sector job just days away. As well, polling then had the Conservatives at least seven points behind, and internal morale was low.
That night, she sought advice, including from Ms. Clark, who encouraged her to serve as campaign director.
“She said, ‘Look, you guys have a chance here. Folks are coming together. I think you should do this,’” Ms. Merrifield said in an interview.
Mr. Eby called the snap election the next morning, Sept. 22, saying his party needed a stronger mandate to meet the “existential moment” brought by U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war.
Then-premier David Eby announces a snap election in Victoria on Sept. 22.Chad Hipolito/The Canadian Press
For Mr. Doerkson’s first news conference as leader, held in Vancouver’s CRAB Park, the campaign team crafted a script that introduced him to British Columbians and emphasized party unity and credibility. They illustrated the point with a backdrop of former defectors, including Mr. Milobar, who stood smiling behind their new leader.
Asked by a reporter about Mr. Trump, Mr. Doerkson called the U.S. President a bully. Conservative insiders said the response neutralized a central tenet of the NDP’s campaign: that the Conservatives were “Maple MAGA” and only the New Democrats would fight back.
Standing out of frame was the party’s former executive director, Angelo Isidorou, who was still hesitant to formally rejoin the group. A week and a half earlier, news broke that he was one of several members allegedly surveilled by a private eye hired by his successor in an ill-fated attempt to root out Conservatives leaking incriminating audio recordings.
But Mr. Isidorou was impressed by Mr. Doerkson, and joined the campaign “war room.”
Mr. Doerkson listens as Peter Milobar speaks at a press conference in Vancouver on Sept. 22.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
Ms. Merrifield said her team scrambled to recruit people to manage tour logistics, communications and fundraising, scaling up an operation of more than 70 people in a matter of days.
Ben Woodfinden, a former director of communications for Mr. Poilievre, was brought on. He said Mr. Doerkson’s performance at that first news conference proved to the team that the relative newcomer was “not a weakness; he’s an immense asset.”
Internal polling also showed that the NDP’s attacks on the Conservatives were failing to slow the party’s rising popularity. This included the revelation of Mr. Doerkson’s letter to trial lawyers and insurance executives, promising to repeal the province’s no-fault auto insurance system.
The Globe’s Andrea Woo explains what led to the B.C. NDP’s defeat. Andrea Woo and Alex Migdal/The Globe and Mail
Mr. Giddens was appointed chair of the party’s election readiness committee, which – with no time for traditional nomination contests – relied on trusted networks and past contenders to quickly assemble a full slate of 93 candidates. Those selected received phone calls and information packages from campaign headquarters each morning and were directed to stay on message: affordability, safety, “supercharging” the economy.
Candidates were vetted as quickly as possible, through criminal-record checks, social-media scans and other research, party insiders said. Two approved candidates were later turfed after the NDP surfaced their social-media posts – one calling for the murder of pro-Palestinian protesters, the other minimizing the Holocaust. Mr. Doerkson immediately denounced their views.
The party faced a more difficult decision when the NDP brought to light an anti-Islamic post by Ms. Merrifield from June.
Ms. Merrifield, who had deleted the post within hours, said it was made in response to accounts of sexual abuse by grooming gangs in Britain, which she found deeply upsetting as a survivor of sexual violence. Her anger was directed at extremism, not Muslims or their faith, she said.
Mr. Doerkson publicly defended Ms. Merrifield and kept her on as campaign director. But the issue spooked some operatives, who felt she should go.
Ms. Merrifield said she checked internal data multiple times a day to see whether the issue was hurting their campaign. It wasn’t.
“If there was ever a chance that I would have ruined our chances, I would have resigned on the spot,” she said.
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Brad Zubyk, a senior strategist with the Conservatives, said the weakness of the NDP’s campaign surprised him.
“The fatal flaw was them thinking that they were actually popular or the Conservatives were unpopular, as opposed to KLF [Ms. Findlay] was unpopular, but that didn’t necessarily extend to the Conservatives,” Mr. Zubyk said.
By election night, internal polling had the Conservatives winning more than 60 seats. Mr. Doerkson watched the results come in from a green room at the party’s headquarters, surrounded by family and members of his team. Ultimately, the Conservatives took 63 seats, enough to give them a healthy majority.
Mr. Isidorou said he is so cynical he had a hard time imagining a major victory, despite the very positive polling numbers Mr. Pantazopoulos delivered daily throughout the campaign.
“All that happened is that we did a good enough job of walking and chewing gum at the same time,” said the strategist credited with helping resurrect the party from the political wilderness just three years ago. “What I mean is that we kept our base – we kept our coalition that we had – but we also expanded it.”