Victoria, BC—Claire Rattée was ousted from the conservative caucus this morning at 11:23 am, Pacific Time.
At first, We received a press statement from the Canadian Press stating “Claire Rattee becoming the 10th to leave since August”.
In response to seeing this, I emailed Rattée’s office for a comment I received the following statement.
“MLA Rattée has not resigned from the conservative caucus and has issued the attached statement. She is not taking interviews at this time and we are asking media to refer to her public statement at this time. Thank you”.
And in a statement that Rattée put on X:
Having received two contradicting statements. We came across, the question, does Conservative Party Leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay, who currently does not hold a seat in the legislation have the authority to oust another member of the party.
MLA Rattée had also pointed this out in her statement. She writes “team members are elected members of the BC Conservative Caucus. Ms. Findlay is not. She does not have the authority to remove any member of our caucus
According to Reform Act from the year of 2014, which is used to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Parliament of Canada Act in terms of candidacy and caucus reforms, explains, for, expulsion and readmission of a caucus member resides with the members of parliament.
In term, meaning, if Claire Rattée and John Rustad are to be expelled from their party, then, they need to be voted out.
However, Findlay skipped the internal voting process and used party executive power and filled the paperwork that resulted in Rattée and Rustad being ousted from the conservative caucus.
Later on, the office of the clerk earlier Friday confirmed that Claire Rattée was also out. The clerk’s office is controlled by leader of the party. In this case, the clerk’s office is given the notice, and they put it in effect.
For John Rustad, he confirmed on record with CTV’s Robert Buffam, last night, was removed from the caucus by Findlay and then 15 minutes later she called him back to reinstate him, and then again, today about 12 hours later she removed him from caucus once again.