Image Credit: BC Legislature / CFJC Today

By James Peters

Provincial Politics

Kamloops MLAs Milobar, Stamer welcome leadership review results, focus on NDP

Sep 24, 2025 | 9:15 AM

KAMLOOPS — The two Conservative MLAs for Kamloops say now that a review of John Rustad’s leadership is complete, the party has sharpened its focus on holding the NDP government’s feet to the fire.

A province-wide membership vote resulted in 71 per cent support for Rustad as leader of the Opposition Conservatives. The result was announced Monday (Sept. 22).

Speaking to CFJC Today, Kamloops-North Thompson MLA Ward Stamer said the number represents strong enough support for the party to move forward in a unified position.

“It’s a good indication that John does have support across the province and that’s important not only for himself but also for caucus as we move forward with initiatives that we’re trying to achieve here for B.C.,” said Stamer.

Shortly after the leadership review result was announced, Rustad turfed Surrey-Cloverdale MLA Elenore Sturko from the Conservative caucus, saying the public safety critic had continually challenged his leadership.

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Kamloops Centre MLA Peter Milobar said he had worked well together with Sturko and was surprised by Rustad’s decision to remove her.

“She’s established herself as a very credible and effective critic of policy that the NDP has been doing and has been proven correct more times than not,” said Milobar. “I do wish her well. I don’t know the ins and the outs of the conversations that led up to [her removal] with her and John Rustad but John obviously felt he had no option other than to make the decision he made.”

Sturko’s removal leaves the Conservatives with 40 MLAs in the BC legislature. The governing NDP have 47 members, while the Green Party and OneBC each have two MLAs. There are now two independent MLAs — Sturko and former Conservative Jordan Kealy.

Milobar says sometimes contentious internal machinations are not taking the party’s attention away from holding the NDP government to account.

“Through the leadership review, it created those longer-term conversations within a fairly new party membership. That is now behind us,” he said. “Now is truly the time to focus in and really get laser-focused on the NDP and exhibiting to the public just why the state of B.C. is in such a mess and that we provide a very credible and optimistic way forward to try to start unwinding the mess we find B.C. in.”

“We’ve got, still, a healthcare crisis. We’ve got significant doctor shortages,” added Stamer. “We’ve got crime. We’ve got affordability issues. Closer to home, we’ve got a forest industry in serious, serious trouble right now. We need this government to pay attention, do something significant and not just say, ‘Everything’s fine. We’re going to continue the way things are,’ because we can’t do that.”