John Rustad on his “remarkable” rise in British Columbia politics

Two years ago, John Rustad, leader of the Conservative Party of British Columbia, found himself at a low point in his life, both personally and politically.

He was looking for a political home after being expelled from the former BC Liberal Party caucus.

Rustad, 61, was also mourning two consecutive losses in the family and his own health had also deteriorated.

“2022 has been a very difficult year for my family,” Rustad said. “My father died in January. My father-in-law died in February. I had shingles in April and then my mother died in July.”

Then came August 2022, when Rustad was expelled from the BC Liberal caucus, now BC United, for supporting an outspoken critic of climate change on social media.

Times have changed since then.

Rustad said he is healthy and has had more time to deal with the loss of loved ones. Today, he is leading the once-marginal BC Conservative Party into a campaign as a serious challenger to the two-term New Democrats led by David Eby.

In the 2020 election, British Columbia's Conservatives received less than two percent of the vote and failed to win a seat, but are now considered rivals to the NDP.

Rustad said he went through a period of deep self-reflection during his time as an independent in the British Columbia parliament before being appointed leader of the Conservative Party of British Columbia in March 2023.

“I explored a number of options in the fall of 2022 after I was kicked out, and in the end the Conservatives were the most sensible vehicle,” he said. “I explored everything from resigning to moving to other political levels. I even had discussions with the old Social Credit Party, with the people who controlled that party.”

Although the Conservative Party of British Columbia has been in political isolation for decades, the opportunity to breathe new life into it and give centre-right voters a new voice proved to be the most sensible solution, Rustad said.

“I had no confidence that Kevin Falcon and the BC Liberals, now of course the BC United Party, could win the next election,” he said.

“That got me thinking that if the BC Liberals don't get it done and the vote is split, this problem could last until 2028, and if we don't win, it will be 2032 before we can drive the socialist hordes out of Victoria,” he said, referring to a slogan by Social Credit leader WAC Bennett, who was the province's premier from 1952 to 1972.

Rustad, whose family has been deeply rooted in British Columbia's forestry industry for generations, seems more like a bookworm than a lumberjack.

Rustad was born and raised in Prince George, BC, and said he has been involved in forestry for most of his life.

“I've done everything in forestry, from working in a sawmill to planting trees and analyzing timber supply to forest development plans and everything in between,” he said. “I ran my own company since 1995 and closed it in 2002 when I started going into politics.”

Rustad's constituency of Nechako Lakes in central British Columbia was elected in 2005 and includes the forestry-dependent communities of Burns Lake, Vanderhoof, Houston and Fort St. James.

“Politics was never really my ambition,” Rustad said. “It was never a goal. But things were going so badly in the 1990s that in 2000 I was actually talking about moving to Calgary with my wife because of the terrible environmental conditions we had in BC.”

He said he decided to stay, but “that left me with two options: either live with it or get involved and try to make a change. I discovered that I actually enjoy politics, which was quite surprising.”

Rustad and his wife Kim live at Cluculz Lake, a small community 40 kilometers west of Prince George.

The couple has no children; Rustad has publicly acknowledged that his wife had previously been diagnosed with cervical cancer.

Rustad was a keynote speaker at a Reclaiming Canada conference in Victoria in May 2023, held “in recognition of the 2022 Freedom Convoy,” which conducted a series of protests and blockades against Canada's COVID-19 restrictions.

In a video of his speech posted online, he told the group that he had walked through a protest and freedom rally for truckers in Vancouver.

“The party I was part of at the time, the BC Liberal Party, said, 'Don't do it. We can't talk about it, we can't support it. It's only going to cost us votes in the Lower Mainland.' I looked at them and thought, this is crazy.”

He said the event reminded him of the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver.

“People were waving flags, they were proud of the country they belonged to, they were singing O Canada at the top of their lungs,” he said, his voice shaking with emotion.

“Good God, that is Canada to me, that is the true power of what we want to see in this province and this country,” he said to applause.

Prof. David Black, a political communications specialist at Royal Roads University in Greater Victoria, said Rustad played a leading role in the biggest political story of the year in BC: the rise of the Conservatives and the demise of BC United.

Falcon unexpectedly suspended BC United's campaign last month and urged voters to support Rustad's Conservatives to prevent a split in the centre-right vote and a likely re-election of the NDP.

“It's not often that you can say that climate skepticism was the reason for a politician's rise to power, because it is usually career-damaging,” Black said.

But the opposite was the case, and Rustad, a conservative from northern British Columbia with experience in the natural resources industry and Indigenous relations, is facing Eby, a socially conscious left-wing lawyer from Vancouver, Black said.

“In that sense, both Eby and Rustad are not part of the central cast when we think about politicians in British Columbia,” he said. “They embody and give voice to the political culture of the regions and political subcultures they come from.”

Andrew Weaver, a world-renowned climate scientist and former leader of the British Columbia Green Party, said he spoke with Rustad ahead of the campaign and found the two had more in common than he initially thought.

“John Rustad's views on climate are obviously not the same as mine,” Weaver said. “But the differences are not as great as some people might think.”

Rustad is a person who listens to opinions and gathers information before making decisions, Weaver said.

“Climate change is real,” Rustad said. “Humans are influencing the climate. I just look at it and think you can't change the weather by driving people into poverty.”

He said he would continue to have discussions with Weaver on climate and resource issues.

Rustad said he expects attacks from the NDP during the election campaign over his party's plans to ban ideology from the classroom, eliminate the carbon tax, support pipeline construction, oppose mandatory vaccination and reallocate post-secondary education funds to promote training in medicine, engineering and skilled trades.

Eby recently said that reproductive freedom issues are likely to come up in the British Columbia election campaign, suggesting that Rustad's Conservatives may not support current access policies and programs for women.

“It's pretty safe to say he is ambivalent about reproductive freedom at best and hostile at worst. Women's access to abortion and free contraception is at issue in this election, just as it is in the United States,” Eby said.

Rustad had previously stated that his party would not reopen the abortion debate because the federal government was regulating the issue.

“I have no problem standing up for what I believe is right,” he said. “I have no problem just saying it like it is. You sleep well at night knowing that you are standing up for what you believe in.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published September 21, 2024.