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The BC Conservatives and the Ides of March
By Tom Shypitka
Op-Ed Commentary
The 2024 BC provincial election proved one thing: history repeats itself—and sometimes in the ugliest ways possible.
The Ides of March, infamous for the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC, was a brutal reminder of what happens when power-hungry opportunists turn on their own. Caesar fell to a conspiracy of senators who saw him as both a threat and a tool for their own ambitions. Sound familiar?
Enter the BC Conservatives. Riding the ideological blue wave of Pierre Poilievre, the party stormed into opposition status with an untested leader and a slate of unknown, poorly vetted candidates. It took less than three weeks for the cracks to show—and the bodies to start piling up.
Two MLAs have already left the party in protest after another was expelled for making offensive comments about Residential Schools on social media. Internal feuds over Trump’s tariffs, ideological purity tests, and personal grudges are already tearing the party apart. This is not just growing pains—this is a party imploding before our eyes.
And the irony? The BC Conservatives once railed against independent candidates, calling them undemocratic and a gift to the BC NDP. Now, in a delicious twist of fate, they’re stuffing the Legislature with independents of their own making. Leading the purge? John Rustad, the man who cried foul when BC United booted him from caucus. Now, he’s the one swinging the executioner’s axe. Three weeks in, and the bloodletting has already begun.
As a conservative-minded voter, I find this nothing short of disgraceful. B.C. is drowning in economic instability, crime, addiction, and cultural division, yet the supposed “opposition” party is too busy eating itself alive. This is not leadership. This is not governance. This is a clown show, and the people of B.C. deserve better.
Politics has devolved into cheap soundbites, bumper-sticker slogans, and gang-like power plays. We’ve watched this poison consume American politics—now it’s infecting Canada.
The party line is supposed to be a guiding principle shaped by the people, not a rigid doctrine imposed by self-serving politicians. MLAs represent their constituents, not party bosses. Ignore that, and democracy dies.
The knives are out for the BC Conservative leadership. Rustad may have thought he was Caesar, but he should remember how that story ended.
Beware the Ides of March.
– Tom Shypitka was Kootenay East MLA between 2017 and 2024
