The conservatives' conflict

An internal war over who is a "real" conservative is about to reach its boiling point

The BC Conservative leadership race highlighted divisions within the conservative movement in British Columbia. Firebrand populist Kerry-Lynne Findlay won the day, but only narrowly and after several rounds of ballots. There was significant support within the party membership for the more traditional, big-tent, free-marketeer (though still socially conservative) approach of Caroline Elliott, who received more than ten thousand votes and 49% of the final ballot.

Some of the biggest names in conservative organizing rallied behind Elliott. Stockwell Day, the former leader of the Canadian Alliance Party, endorsed Elliott as leader. So did Gordon Campbell, the architect of the right-wing BC Liberal Party that reduced the NDP to two seats in 2001. Jason Kenney, who united the Wildrose and Progressive Conservative parties in Alberta to defeat Rachel Notley’s NDP, also endorsed Elliott.

Behind the scenes, names that the average person wouldn’t recognize but have been equally influential in conservative politics also backed Elliott’s bid. This includes Anthony Koch, who was federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s spokesperson; Katy Merrifield, who was recently Poilievre’s director of communications; Howard Anglin, former senior advisor to both Harper and Alberta Premier Jason Kenney; Nick Kouvalis, a former advisor to Toronto mayors Rob Ford and John Tory; and Jeff Ballingall, the founder of online networks Canada Proud and Ontario Proud.

Many current Conservative MPs and MLAs owe their success to the foundations built by these organizers, and in particular Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. Which makes it all the more surprising that Poilievre used a speech to congratulate Findlay on her success and to attack his conservative peers.

“Way to go. Fresh off a big win against Liberal lobbyists from out east.”

Pierre Poilievre, July 5, 2026

The “Liberal lobbyists” remark appears to be directed largely at Kory Teneycke, who managed Elliott’s campaign. Previously, Teneycke was the Director of Communications for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, vice president of the right-leaning Sun News Network, chief spokesperson for the Conservative Party in the 2015 election, and managed three successful Ontario provincial Conservative campaigns in a row.

For those keeping score, that’s three more wins than Poilievre.

Far from running on a classic liberal platform, Elliott ran on firmly conservative positions. She planned to repeal legislation protecting the rights of Indigenous people and revoke programs supporting queer students in BC schools. She pledged to cut taxes and fight against the Liberal government in Ottawa. If she had won, she promised to be harsh on crime and more punitive towards substance users. In one of her first interviews launching her bid to lead the party, she framed her campaign as “about making people feel proud to be conservatives again.”

To dismiss her campaign team as “Liberal lobbyists” seems completely disconnected with what the words “conservative” and “liberal” mean.

The root of the animosity between Poilievre and Teneycke seems to be the latter’s willingness to criticize the party in the lead up to the 2025 election. He voiced concerns that Poilievre was adopting too much of the style and rhetoric of the US president at a time when Canadians were greatly displeased about tariffs and threats of annexation. He was worried that the Conservatives were misplaying the moment and risking the Liberals being reelected under Carney.

The thing is, when the ballots were counted last year, Teneycke appears to have been right. The Conservatives did not win. Poilievre lost his own seat. His misreading the changing political landscape following the US president’s election is cited as one of the main reasons he lost.

“They’ve been having trouble in the polls, and the reaction to that, rather than reaching out and growing their coalition, is to turn inward and to try to ignite a civil war within the Conservative Party. To what to what purpose? Certainly not to the benefit of the Conservatives’ chances of winning the next election.”

Kory Teneycke, CTV News, July 9, 2026

More than 25,000 people took out memberships with the BC Conservative Party to vote in the leadership race — an increasingly rare thing in Canada. 10,847 of them voted for Elliott on the final ballot. Poilievre, as leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, dismissed them as “Liberals” — casting them as enemies and celebrating the loss of their preferred candidate.

That does not bode well for conservatives who see building a broad coalition as the path to government. It’s going to be that much harder to keep those ten thousand members engaged when the successful leadership candidate and federal party leader are on a stage explicitly stating that you are not a part of their tent.

Meanwhile, Poilievre’s caucus has lost another member, with Quebec Member of Parliament Richard Martel accepting Prime Minister Carney’s offer to join the Senate. This is the fifth Conservative to leave Poilievre’s team since the 2025 election, bringing the opposition to 139 seats in the House of Commons. That’s notably less than the 166 seats won in 2011 by Prime Minister Harper and several of the “Liberal lobbyists” Poilievre is so keen to attack.

In British Columbia, the election of Kerry-Lynne Findlay led former Conservative Amelia Boultbee, who left the caucus amid conflict with former leader John Rustad, to join the New Democrats. She saw no place in the BC Conservative tent for her.

British Columbia has had many different conservative movements. There have been more traditional institutionalist parties and more populist reform movements, alongside live-and-let live libertarians and moral interventionists. Some conservatives have preferred more direct involvement in the market, and some have taken a more hands-off, free market approach. Some have been more successful than others, but all represent different aspects of the conservative political spectrum.

But few conservative parties, indeed parties of any philosophical background, succeed when the leader believes anyone who disagrees with them or sees politics through a different lens is the enemy.

Poilievre intended to congratulate Kerry-Lynne Findlay on her narrow victory to become leader of the BC Conservative Party. Instead he threw a grenade in the middle of any effort to bring the conservative movement together, and insulted some of the most successful conservative organizers in modern history — many of whom were part of his own campaign to become leader.

“Politics is about addition, not subtraction, putting the public interest ahead of personal disputes, welcoming people in, not shutting them out. I’ll keep fighting every day to bring people together for the future of my province and our country. I just hope you decide to do that too.”

Caroline Elliott responding to Poilievre, July 9, 2026

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