Boundary-Similkameen MLA Donegal Wilson has joined Peter Milobar’s new BC political party, becoming its seventh member.
Wilson quit the Conservative caucus on September 2 but initially planned to sit as an Independent. After days spent with constituents back home in her southern Interior riding, she changed course. “I was leaving a caucus, not my principles, and that has not changed,” she said.
Milobar, the former Kamloops mayor who left the Conservative caucus in August, leads the new party on an interim basis. He founded it with Ian Paton, and Bruce Banman, A’aliya Warbus, Rosalyn Bird and Teresa Wat, all former Conservative MLAs, joined afterward.
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Nine MLAs have now left Kerry-Lynne Findlay’s caucus since she won the leadership in May; two others, Scott McInnis and Brennan Day, are sitting as Independents instead.
Read: BC Conservatives Lose Two More MLAs, Chief Of Staff In One Day
Findlay herself doesn’t hold a seat in the legislature yet — her leadership win in May came by a thin margin, and she needs a byelection win in Abbotsford-Mission on September 26 to change that. The party expects to pick a permanent leader and sit together once the legislature is back in session on October 5.
Wilson, a self-described fiscal conservative, framed her decision as a bet that the new party can give British Columbians something better than the NDP, rather than an attempt to rebuild what she called “an old, failed party.”
With Wilson, Milobar’s party now includes seven of the nine MLAs who have left Findlay’s caucus since May, leaving the Conservatives with just 29 of the 44 seats they won in 2024.
