The lights inside the Global TV studio in Burnaby were barely dimming before the gloves came off. In what was billed as the closing argument of a bruising leadership race, all five candidates competing to lead the B.C. Conservative Party Iain Black, Caroline Elliott, Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Yuri Fulmer, and Peter Milobar took the stage Friday night for a final, 90-minute reckoning.
The debate, moderated by Global BC’s legislative reporter Ben O’Hara Byrne, arrived at a pivotal moment: that same morning, ballots began landing in the inboxes of more than 42,000 party members across the province. Whoever survives the vote will be announced at a party convention in Vancouver on May 30 and will inherit a Conservative Party polling at its highest in years.
Unlike the first two debates last month which exposed real rifts over land acknowledgements, diversity policy, and education Friday’s face-off was less a war of ideas and more a contest of character. Every candidate voiced support for repealing the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, endorsed a new oil pipeline to the B.C. coast, and promised an ambitious overhaul of health care. The disagreements came not over what to do, but over who had the credibility and grit to actually do it.
The shadow looming largest over the debate was the one cast by the party’s own recent history. Former leader John Rustad was forced out last December after losing the confidence of caucus a messy episode that left wounds still visibly healing. Every candidate acknowledged it, though they offered different prescriptions.
Elliott, a lawyer and political commentator, was direct: “We’re all on the same mission right now and that is to defeat the NDP. It’s the number one task at hand, and a divided party is the biggest gift we can give the NDP.” Fulmer, an entrepreneur, leaned into his pitch to “unite the right,” arguing that vote-splitting between conservatives had handed past elections to the NDP. Milobar, the MLA for Kamloops Centre, struck a softer tone, saying the party needs to rebuild trust and move forward with everyone on the same page regardless of how voters lean federally.
Findlay, a former federal MP and cabinet member, went further still, insisting the goal shouldn’t be unifying the right it should be “unifying overall,” pulling in disaffected voters from any political stripe who want to see the province prosper. Black, a former B.C. Liberal cabinet minister, agreed on the fundamentals: unite, beat the NDP, fix the economy.
Where the candidates found genuine common ground, they also found the sharpest elbows. All five pledged to repeal the province’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act but the question of who had earned that position grew heated fast.
DRIPA has moved to the centre of provincial politics following a series of major court decisions, including a ruling last year granting the Cowichan Nation title rights over large swaths of land in and around Richmond a decision with real implications for private property rights.
Elliott challenged her rivals directly, arguing that she had spoken out against the legislation when it was politically costly to do so and that some of her opponents had not. Black pushed back, calling her claim to superior courage “a theoretical statement” given that she has never held a position where that kind of fortitude was truly tested. Findlay countered that she had been fighting indigenous land rights battles “when it was very unpopular.” Milobar pointed to his experience as a former mayor who had built working relationships with First Nations communities near Kamloops experience, he said, that makes him uniquely suited to find consensus on the file.
Fulmer wasn’t buying it. “To think we can move forward on this file without any animus at all on both sides I think is really naive,” he said, arguing the matter requires concrete action, not conversations.
The debate’s most combustible moment came when Findlay suggested Milobar faced a conflict of interest on natural resource investment. Milobar’s response was immediate and personal: “Just say it. My wife’s indigenous so you think I’m in conflict of interest. I’ve never heard of something so ridiculous in my life.”
On the province’s energy future, the consensus was nearly total. All five candidates want a new pipeline to the B.C. coast and want the federal ban on oil tankers in the province’s northern waters lifted a ban Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has long called an obstacle to getting Alberta crude to Asian markets.
Black called the tanker ban “performative politics at best,” noting that American tankers already use the same waterway. Fulmer, characteristically blunt, summed up his platform in eleven words: “Yes to pipelines. Yes to repealing the tanker ban. Next question.” Findlay called Premier Eby “disingenuous” for claiming a pipeline could be built while simultaneously blocking the tankers needed to move the product. Elliott framed the debate in national terms, saying British Columbia needs to “stop roadblocking Canada’s success.”
Elliott and Milobar also trained their fire on the NDP’s CleanBC emissions reduction plan, with Elliott arguing it would cost the province $110 billion over four years far more than the roughly $43 billion she estimates U.S. tariffs will cost. Milobar called it a “complete farce,” saying emissions have risen rather than fallen under its watch.
When the debate ended and the studio lights cooled, the five candidates shook hands in front of a room that knows the next chapter begins when those 42,000 ballots are counted. A recent Angus Reid poll has the B.C. Conservatives at 46 percent among decided and leaning voters, against 36 percent for the NDP. For whoever wins on May 30, the lead is real and so is the weight of squandering it.
