Tara Armstrong ousts OneBC leader after she fired staff who made pro-Nazi posts

Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream MLA Tara Armstrong made headlines again after ousting her party leader after she demanded a staffer be fired for making online posts approving of Nazism. Now, Armstrong and the party are in uncertain times.

Armstrong ousted OneBC leader Dallas Brodie. Brodie said it’s about firing a staff member who promoted Nazi ideology online while Armstrong claims it’s because she has lost confidence in Brodie’s leadership. Now that the party is split, OneBC is no longer an official party since a party needs at least two members.

This leaves Armstrong in an uncertain position as she stares down a recall campaign. 

OneBC’s board of directors, Armstrong, Tim Thielmann and Paul Ratchford released a letter announcing that Brodie was removed on Dec. 13.

The letter said that Brodie was removed because Armstrong had lost confidence in her leadership and because “there have been multiple recent attempts by agents instructed by Ms. Brodie to obtain control of party assets without authorization, including multiple attempted breaches of security systems, communications software, and databases of the party.”

In a social media post Brodie said she had concerns about a staffer named Othman Mekhloufi and wanted him fired. Brodie said in an interview that Mekhloufi was a neo-Nazi. 

Mekhloufi’s social media account is restricted but archived social media posts attributed to him reference neo-Nazi ideology and symbolism like the sonnenrad, “JQ” referencing the “Jewish question” and a far-right book called “Bronze Age Mindset”.

A OneBC staff member Wyatt Claypool responded to Armstrong’s post online criticizing her for failing to mention Mekhloufi. 

“The fact that your statement doesn’t even mention Othman and his unethical behaviour that you refused to correct is quite something,” Claypool wrote in the social media post. “You even supported Tim Thielman firing an employee who rightfully complained about Othman but then became bent out of shape when Dallas corrected the situation and removed those who are actually causing chaos.”

Claypool told iNFOnews.ca that Mekhloufi’s beliefs and rhetoric went beyond the average neo-Nazi and he made most staff members uncomfortable.

“He’s weirder than that,” Claypool said. “He’s basically like a spiritual racist. . .honestly the weirdness of it is why he’s stuck around longer, because it was so esoterically insane.”

Claypool said that Armstrong relies on Thielmann and Ratchford for information, and often didn’t speak directly with staff about. 

“There’s a hierarchy here and she only wants to hear from the executive director and the chief of staff,” he said. 

As far as the future of Armstrong and OneBC goes, Claypool said there is a lot of uncertainty but there’s a chance Brodie could try to take the party back and put Armstrong in a position to make a choice whether to sit as an independent, restore her relationship with Brodie, or try her luck with a different party. 

“It would honestly be up to Armstrong at this point,” he said.

Armstrong may not have much time to recover from her breakup with Brodie since a recall campaign intends to get her pulled out of office come April. 

Wilbur Turner is a political activist, one of Armstrong’s constituents and he’s leading the recall campaign.  

“It’s not even clear what her position will be when the spring legislature starts up again, whether she’ll be sitting as an independent or if she finds another person to join her to keep the party status. So I think she’s going to be doing a lot of juggling her own political future versus focusing on what matters to the constituents,” he said. 

Turner said this fallout is just more motivation for people who want to recall her. 

“The responses I’m hearing from folks in the riding are they just think we need to double down,” he said. “There’s been nothing substantial that Armstrong has done for the riding. It’s all been kind of theatrics in the legislature and now the fighting in the party.”