Some BC Conservatives interested in campaign to recall controversial Okanagan MLA

The start to the long-awaited campaign to recall Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream MLA Tara Armstrong has been delayed because some BC Conservatives want to throw their weight behind the effort.

The application for a recall petition to oust Armstrong from office was supposed to be filed, April 20, but some in the BC Conservative party told a campaign organizer to hold off until the end of the party’s leadership race, May 30.

“That was the advice we were given from some folks within the BC Conservatives who want to be more involved,” Wilbur Turner told iNFOnews.ca.

Delaying the recall petition until after the BC Conservative leadership race would allow for more focus on the recall petition, rather than splitting attention between both.

Turner said with the support of BC Conservatives the campaign is more likely to get the necessary 18,000 signatures to recall Armstrong from office.

“It’s a critical element of a nonpartisan approach to this. We’ve been told by many of them that they really do want Tara Armstrong to be recalled. So, the feelings are pretty strong about it,” Turner said.

Armstrong was elected as a BC Conservative before she left the party to start her own party OneBC, which she was later kicked out of, so now she sits as an independent.

Armstrong’s list of controversies is long. She didn’t go to her all-candidates forum or answer questions on the campaign trail, she left the BC Conservatives to support a fellow MLA who mocked residential school survivors, she started her own party which included a pay raise for herself, and introduced numerous bills targeting minorities.

A BC Conservative party insider said that some members of the caucus want her out not because of her controversial ideology, but because she hasn’t shown up for her constituents.

Armstrong has also endorsed one of the candidates for the leadership of the BC Conservatives, Kerry-Lynne Findlay, and iNFOnews.ca was told that some don’t want to see Armstrong find her way back into the party.

The executive director of the BC Conservative Party Angelo Isidorou said in an email that the party is not “presently involved in any recall petition related to Ms. Armstrong.”

The BC Conservatives has lost seats since the election as several MLAs, like Armstrong, left the party to sit as independents.

Turner said this delay is strategic, it’s meant to give the campaign a greater chance at getting Armstrong out of office.

“We need all hands on deck for it. So, we’re really appreciative of the folks that have indicated interest. We’re using the time, we’re not stopping anything,” he said.