Overview
- Findlay won the leadership on the fourth ballot Saturday, May 30, taking 51 percent of the vote over Caroline Elliott after party members completed four rounds of preferential voting.
- She campaigned on a populist, socially conservative platform framed as “faith, family and freedom,” promising lower taxes, tougher public‑safety measures, and rolls back of certain reconciliation policies.
- The party staged a public show of unity at a caucus meeting the day after the vote but faces real fractures: several former MLAs remain independent or in other formations and some prominent centrists say they will not return.
- Federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre congratulated and endorsed Findlay while the BC NDP accused the party of moving to a hard‑right, populist base, and media reports have surfaced about an unconfirmed Elections Canada probe into her 2025 federal campaign that she denies.
- The leadership change reshapes the province’s right‑of‑centre landscape ahead of the next general election, and Findlay has said she will seek a legislative seat quickly so she can lead the party from the legislature.