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A person walks at an intersection featuring several electoral campaign lawn signs in North Vancouver, B.C., on Sept. 21. Parties have until Oct. 3 to file candidate applications .Justine Beaulieu-Poudrier/The Globe and Mail
John Rustad, who resurrected the Conservative Party of B.C. and brought it within three seats of forming government two years ago, is not seeking re-election in next month’s early vote, while former Green leader Andrew Weaver will return under the banner of the fledgling CentreBC party.
The announcements Wednesday add to a frenetic reshuffling of the province’s political landscape that has seen candidates change allegiances, leaders come and go and parties scramble to assemble slates for an election arriving two years early. On Tuesday, NDP Leader David Eby announced a snap election to be held on Oct. 24.
Mr. Rustad has represented the riding of Nechako Lakes since 2009 and served as party leader from 2023 to 2025, resigning amid a party revolt. He was ousted from caucus last Friday by former leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay and rejoined on Monday.
“Under his leadership, our party grew from less than 2 per cent of the vote to Official Opposition,” the party said in a statement. “The Conservative Party of B.C. would never have reached where it is today without his conviction, hard work and willingness to stand up when few others would.”
Every other Conservative MLA will run again, the party said. As well, its board will “pursue the appropriate means” under its constitution and bylaws to ensure interim leader Lorne Doerkson “will remain leader if elected.”
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Meanwhile, CentreBC announced its recruitment of climate scientist and University of Victoria professor Andrew Weaver to run in his old riding of Oak Bay-Gordon Head.
Mr. Weaver joined the Conservative Party of B.C. earlier this year to vote for Kamloops Centre MLA Peter Milobar in the party’s leadership race, cancelling his membership when the polarizing Ms. Findlay won. He then supported CentreBC from the sidelines and was dismayed when seven of the eight Conservative MLAs who had joined the more centrist party, including Mr. Milobar, returned to the Tories on Tuesday.
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B.C. Conservative interim Leader Lorne Doerkson replaces former leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay after she resigned as party leader.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
Even with Mr. Doerkson replacing Ms. Findlay, who resigned Sunday, Mr. Weaver said he could not back a party whose membership had chosen her as leader just months earlier.
He agreed to run moments after learning that Elenore Sturko would remain and become CentreBC’s new leader.
“I thought, ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake. Does anyone have any principles left?’” he said in an interview Wednesday. “So I thought, you know what, Elenore needs help. She’s sticking her neck out there. Good for her. I’ve always respected her. So I let them know.”
Ms. Sturko, an independent MLA and former RCMP officer who was booted from the Conservatives a year ago after a falling out with Mr. Rustad, said CentreBC is now vetting applicants who want to run in all of the province’s 93 ridings.
Mr. Weaver said he hopes CentreBC can win enough seats to deny the NDP a majority government, noting the province’s $13.8-billion deficit under Mr. Eby.
“My wish is that there’s a minority government and that nobody trusts anyone with the keys to the House by themselves, because they have not demonstrated their ability to act like adults in the legislature,” he said.
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Stewart Prest, a political science lecturer at the University of British Columbia, said the upstart CentreBC faces a massive uphill battle for relevance compared to the Conservatives. But, he said, Mr. Weaver qualifies as a star candidate capable of breaking through in the tony region that houses his alma mater, the University of Victoria.
“He’s the kind of person who can create his own weather in that particular riding,” Prof. Prest said.
Mr. Weaver was elected to the riding in 2013, becoming the province’s first Green MLA, and re-elected in 2017, when he and his two fellow Green MLAs signed a cooperation agreement with the New Democrats that swung a hung Parliament and ended 16 years of successive BC Liberal governments.
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Four NDP cabinet ministers from Leader David Eby’s party have said they will not be seeking re-election.Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press
As CentreBC announced Mr. Weaver’s candidacy, NDP Leader Mr. Eby held a campaign event at a B.C.-Washington State border crossing in Surrey, where he pledged a tripling of a government advertising campaign to lure U.S. health care workers to the province if re-elected.
A $5-million blitz that started in June, 2025 and targeted workers in Washington State, Oregon and California has resulted in about 800 doctors, nurses and other health care professionals accepting job offers in B.C., Mr. Eby said. A re-elected NDP government would commit an additional $10-million and expand the campaign to Republican-controlled states where such workers face restrictions on their ability to provide life-saving reproductive care, he said.
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Mr. Eby’s remarks repeated the messaging of his election address one day earlier, when he sought to link B.C.’s political right to U.S. President Donald Trump and position the NDP as the party to stand up to MAGA-style policies.
He cited a February, 2025, social media post by Conservative MLA Heather Maahs, who said that “Eby needs to comply” with the Trump administration’s demand to stop the flow of illicit fentanyl into the U.S. from Canada in order to avoid tariffs. He argued that a B.C. Conservative government would create the same repressive conditions from which U.S. health care workers are fleeing.
“If we turn our province into America Jr., we put all of that at risk,” Mr. Eby said.
(The Globe and Mail has debunked Mr. Trump’s claim that the synthetic opioid was pouring south across the border.)
The NDP also announced Wednesday that former Global News and CBC legislative reporter Richard Zussman will be its candidate in Saanich South.
Meanwhile, Brenda Bailey became the fourth NDP cabinet minister to announce that she would not be seeking re-election, after Ravi Kahlon, Lana Popham and Kelly Greene.
B.C. Green Leader Emily Lowan, who does not have a seat in the legislature, announced Wednesday that she will run in the riding of Saanich North and the Islands, after Green MLA Rob Botterell announced his retirement.