A group of five former B.C. Conservative MLAs are banding together to create a new provincial political party under the leadership of Peter Milobar and Ian Paton.
MLAs Rosalyn Bird, Bruce Banman and Áʼa:líya Warbus, who have all left the Conservatives in recent weeks, announced they joined the new party Friday morning.
The news follows a series of nine departures from the B.C. Conservative caucus.
In a news release Friday morning, the MLAs of the currently nameless party said they want to give a “stable, serious alternative to the NDP.”
Milobar, acting as interim party leader, told CBC’s The Early Edition that the party will be focused on addressing the daily concerns of British Columbians, including affordability, property rights, natural resource development and health care “in a way that is less 100 per cent tied to ideology.”
“Ultimately, I want us to defeat the NDP and be government,” Milobar said.
And he doesn’t think his new party will split the vote on the right.
He referred to the “exodus of MLAs” in the Conservative caucus in recent weeks and called it “chaos.”
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“This is about us and trying to recalibrate and give people a legitimate voting option that they can see themselves voting and MLAs can feel proud to be a part of.”
Milobar left the Conservative caucus on Aug. 14, saying his values didn’t align with the new leader, and Paton followed soon after.
The two announced their intentions to form a new political party on Aug. 24.
Milobar will sit as interim leader of the party until the caucus elects a permanent one. The party plans to hold an internal leadership vote before Oct. 5 when the legislature returns.
With five seats, the party intends to sit with official third-party status.
