Juno News - January 13, 2026BC Conservatives vs NDP madness
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Summary
Trevor Halford is the interim leader of the B.C. Conservative Party and represents the good people of Surrey, White Rock. In this episode, Trevor talks about how he became interim leader, why he stepped up, and what he plans to do in the future.
Transcript
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Hi, I'm Candace Malcolm, and this is The Candace Malcolm Show.
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I am here in Vancouver, and I'm very pleased today to be sitting down with Trevor Halford.
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Trevor is the interim leader of the B.C. Conservative Party.
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He represents the good people of Surrey, White Rock.
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Okay, so give us a little bit of a background and overview.
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How did you become interim leader, and what happened to former leader John Rudstad,
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Yeah, you know, obviously, we came in to be the official opposition in October of 2024.
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And, you know, through that year, we've made some great strides.
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And, you know, the NDP only have a one-seat majority in the House,
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and we came within 500 votes of actually being able to form government.
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So, you know, as we got into the year, you know, I think going forward,
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we kind of realized that the party was kind of expanding,
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and John resigned in early December, and I was appointed interim leader.
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And the process was, I think, you know, to be fair to everybody involved,
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was probably not as smooth as we all wanted it to be.
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But, you know, John did say that, you know, he was going to put the party first.
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And, you know, I think he's going to be true to his word on that.
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And, you know, I'm excited about what's going to take place next,
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which is going to be a great leadership race as we go into 2026.
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And, you know, for me, you know, why I stepped up and accepted the position of interim leader
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is because I really want to give some stability within that caucus with holding the NEP to account.
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But also, too, is that I want to hand that office off to the next person in better shape than when I found it.
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And that's what I'm going to be focused on over the months to come.
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So when you say better shape, so there has been some internal party turmoil.
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Was it sort of issues-based, or what was the conflict?
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I think it was just that, you know, as parties evolve and as they expand and as they grow,
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you know, I think that there can be some tension within that.
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And, you know, unfortunately it played out in a public way.
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I'll tell you, you know, in the other day, just before New Year's,
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we raised more money than we've ever had in one day,
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And what I want to show them and what our caucus wants to show them
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is that we are a government-in-waiting with the Conservative Party in B.C.
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Great. Well, maybe you can help us understand just the political landscape here in British Columbia.
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which was a combination sort of free market liberals and conservatives in a coalition.
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And so we have the B.C. United Party, which is the former Liberal Party,
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and then the Conservative Party came out of that.
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And then we also have 1.B.C., which is dealing with their own sort of party turmoil.
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So can you help us understand what are the differences between the B.C. United,
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So, again, this is the beauty about B.C. politics,
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is that it's always moving, it's always dynamic,
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and it's, you know, there's a level of excitement there.
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and I actually think they have some major internal issues and some fracturing
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to the light pretty soon as we get into the spring session.
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Obviously, we had the B.C. Liberal Party before that, it was social credit.
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And so you kind of have this evolution of parties.
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The B.C. Liberal Party took power in 2001 and, you know, held majorities until 2017.
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they were able to get a confidence and plies agreement with the Green Party,
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and that's when John Horgan took power in 2017.
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The B.C. Liberal Party kind of went through an evolution of leaders,
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you know, whether it was Gordon Campbell, Christy Clark, Andrew Wilkinson, Kevin Falcon.
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But it was really based on what you mentioned before,
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And, you know, the key thing that I've been talking about
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and I think is really important for everybody to understand
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is that, you know, so many people in British Columbia and Canada,
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you know, they don't walk around with a party membership in their wallet.
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today I'm a federal conservative, today I'm a federal liberal, I'm NDP.
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Today they wake up and they say, how am I paying my mortgage?
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Like, why is the line at the food bank bigger than it's ever been before?
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And so that's kind of the things that we focus on.
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And I think for us as the Conservative Party of B.C.
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is that, you know, the Conservative Party has been around for a long time.
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The party itself here, like, we're in our infancy
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But we're actually kind of, I think we're growing in a way that's so exciting, right?
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The platform that we ran on in 2024 hasn't changed.
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And I think what you're going to see as we go forward on a leadership race
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is we're going to have contestants that are going to come out there
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and they're going to give their vision of what this party should be
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and ultimately our path to success to government.
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And it's going to be up to the members on which way they want to go.
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So one of the things I did want to ask you about
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was that under John Rudstad, you had Dallas Brody,
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who's a really outspoken MLA representing Vancouver, Kulshana.
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She was ousted from the party for her stance on, I think, residential schools
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Is that an issue that, you know, if you have those views,
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Or how do you reconcile with people who might be skeptical
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of the claims around unmarked graves or the history of residential schools?
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Yeah, I think that, listen, any caucus, doesn't matter what party you're affiliated with,
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So my, and I'm not scared of that at all, right?
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I actually think that the more views that you have is better.
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What I will say is that it has to be done in a respectful way.
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No matter what side you're on, those views need to be communicated in a respectful way.
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And I think part of the opportunity for us is that, you know,
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and we're a party that, you know, wants to make sure that people are having their voice.
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But also, too, is that we want to make sure that people realize that, you know,
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on some of these issues, whether it's reconciliation or whether it's, you know,
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that we're coming from a sense of what's best for British Columbia, right?
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And so, you know, I welcome people's views, but they have to be done in a respectful way.
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And, you know, we have to make sure that we're tolerant of everybody's opinions as we go forward.
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Okay, so let's talk about the major issues facing British Columbians.
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Like, when I talk to friends, family, and listeners that live in Vancouver,
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and all of British Columbia, you know, it's always cost of living.
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It's always the cost of real estate, cost of homes, just price, cost of living, cost of gas and everything.
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So what is your party's vision for making British Columbia more affordable?
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I come from Surrey, where 95% of the businesses are small businesses.
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I grew up in a family where it was based on small business.
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If you look at the things that government is layering on small businesses, it's choking them out.
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And that is where we actually get our economic growth from, right?
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We actually get it from the people that are signing the front of the paychecks.
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And I think that's the disconnect with the NDP.
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The NDP will evaluate their success on how much they can grow the premier's office, how much they can grow government.
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I don't think that that's what British Columbians are looking for.
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I think what they're looking for is when you come here, right, or when you decide that you are going to, you know, you are going to be a part of the economy here.
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Is the government going to move the goalposts in the middle of the game?
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And that's all British Columbians want to know, right?
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And I think for this government is that they have made it so difficult to do business in British Columbia.
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That that is why we're seeing investment leaving this province, going to Alberta, going to other places, because this government is not credible when it comes to supporting the economy.
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They're credible when it comes to supporting themselves, when it comes to growing the bureaucracy.
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But when it comes to actually making sure that people can come here with a dream and that they can grow their business and that they can have employees and those employees can can prosper.
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That's that's not a priority for the government.
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And that's that's been very clear over the last eight years.
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The other issue that I hear a lot of concern from people here is just with property rights.
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There was that court ruling over the summer that gave a large portion of Richmond, British Columbia, or transferred the land, saying that the Cowichan tribe was the rightful owners of that.
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What does that do to the confidence in just property rights here or building a business or moving here or or buying a house when that's sort of like looming over?
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Like, do you actually have title over your land in British Columbia?
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What's your take on that issue and how would you reassure your constituents and British Columbians that that actually you can buy land here and you don't have to worry about the government taking away your title?
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And we need to make sure that everyone, not just in British Columbia, but not just in Canada, but worldwide, knows that that is the case here in this province, because right now that is subject to question.
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We are in a very vulnerable situation because of the NDP, because of Premier Eby.
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Right. And I think part of the challenge is, is that the Premier knows that, but he actually doesn't know what to do about it.
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OK, we have said we have put forward some solutions.
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But I think part of the challenge is, is that he's he's given mixed messages on everything.
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So one, he says, well, property rights, they're they're not up for discussion and there's no issue here and I'm not concerned about it.
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But then he says, well, we're going to backstop these mortgages to the tune of I think it was one hundred and fifty million or something like that.
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But the then we hear from the economists that the real number is is over a billion dollars that they would need to be doing.
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But it's not just Richmond that is dealing with this.
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They're dealing with this right now on the ground.
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Now we're hearing about Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, where this could pop up.
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And I think that's a pretty sobering indictment on where we are right now in terms of property rights.
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And I can tell you that this is on the mind of not just a few British Columbians, but a lot.
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And it's if it's on the mind of them, then it's on the mind of people that want to move here.
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It's on the people that want to invest their businesses in here.
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And right now there's no clarity on what this province, what this NDP government, what this premier is going to do to bring that clarity back.
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Like, again, you know, I'm visiting and I'm here and all I hear everywhere I go is like land acknowledgements.
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And I get that it's a way to show respect to people who lived here before.
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But, you know, we were a science world with the kids.
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And before every little presentation, they remind us that we're on unceded land.
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And it's like, you know, if you're telling the population, you're telling kids in schools and you're telling little kids at a science museum that the land you're on is stolen.
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It sort of implies that Canada is not really a legitimate country and that somehow some other people are the rightful owners of the land, not based on institutions and country, but based on their race and their tribe.
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It's like the message that we're sending to people is that somehow property rights are up for negotiation and that and that maybe we should be, you know, transferring land and, you know, the whole land back movement.
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So I'm wondering if you if you see that connection, you think that there's a danger in that.
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Listen, I for I people are free to do and not do land acknowledgements.
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They people want to do them, do them if they don't, don't.
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Um, but the one thing I will say on them is like there there has to be, um, people have got to realize kind of what they're saying, right, and what their words, what their words mean.
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And you can tell that if you listen to the previous land acknowledgements and does he use the word unseated?
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And I'd ask people to pay attention to that because that's something, you know, I think that we have to start understanding is what language are elected officials using when they're doing land acknowledgements?
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And how is that being prescribed or perceived and, um, or interpreted for me is that, again, it goes back to the fact that, you know, we're all British Columbians and it's important that, um, people understand what their rights are.
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And it's important that when we pass legislation in that house, that we understand what the consequences are.
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We had a premier and a government and an attorney general at the time.
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The premier, David Eby, was attorney general at the time when DRIPA was announced and when they did the, uh, Declaration Act.
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And they assured British Columbians that we would not be in the situation that we are today.
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And that's why I've called for a full repeal of DRIPA.
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I've said that we would go back to the legislature immediately.
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I even said that we would forego question periods.
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We'd forego, uh, introducing private members bills, two minute statements, all that stuff.
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We will go there just to do this specific work and we can get it done.
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We made that offer and I, I continue to make that offer.
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Well, we're looking at the legislation amendments and I guess my, my whole thing on this, and
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I mean this sincerely, if you didn't get it right the first and the second time, why are
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What makes you think you can get it right this time without a full repeal?
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Like what makes you think, and that, that doesn't mean that that's anti-reconciliation.
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Like the other thing I've said too, is that has reconciliation in this province been well
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And in many cases, they're looking for leadership.
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They're looking for the premier to say, here's our path.
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I've always said it's never the wrong time to do the right thing.
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But if he's going to say, well, we're going to come in and we're going to do some legislative
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But when he got up in the house as attorney general and assured us that we weren't going
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to be in this position, um, I'm not sure why British Columbians are going to take his
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word for it when he finds it convenient to introduce whatever legislation he's going to
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Well, it seems to all be coming from an ideological position, part, partially just opposing development.
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Um, you know, we have Prime Minister Mark Carney coming to a memorandum of understanding with
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Alberta Premier Danielle Smith to get a pipeline built.
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And you have David Eby stepping up saying, it's not going to happen.
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Like, like what, what, what do you make for, you know, what should Canadians do?
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Or how should Canadians interpret the situation where you have the, the leader of the country
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and the leader of one province saying, we, we all want pipelines.
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And then, you know, the person who's governing the, the, the, the port, uh, you know, the
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province that controls the port saying it's not going to happen.
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Um, you know, we, we sort of found ourselves in a situation for over a decade now where
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we can't seem to get anything built partially because of this ideology.
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What, what, what do you think is going to happen?
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Yeah, uh, maybe it's, I think to be fair to Premier Eby, um, and I mean this sincerely,
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Um, this is a person who has built his career on activism, right?
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And whether it's, uh, you know, having people followed around during the Olympics to, um,
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that were protesting and interfering with police work and making sure that he was, uh, giving
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them legal support or, or actually instructing them on, on how to protest the police.
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Um, you know, that's what he was doing in 2010.
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Um, you know, if you fast forward past, uh, you know, uh, into the Premier's office or
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before that as Attorney General, he spent his time in the court supposing TMX losing every
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single time, uh, uh, by the way, but, but now he'll be at the ceremony to cut the ribbon.
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So I don't think anybody should be surprised by the fact that, that, uh, that he's being
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If you look at what's happened over the last week and in different things, um, not only that
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over the last, the last number of years is that we've missed out on so much economic development
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in this province over the last eight years and especially over the last, the last four.
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And I firmly believe that it's because that this is a government that is, is anti-resource
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development and they can say, well, we know where, you know, this is where we're pro wind
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Um, but just because you put out news releases and, you know, your window dress, that's not the
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When I say coming to an end, that means that they're the construction of those projects,
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which creates not hundreds of jobs, not thousands of jobs, but tens of thousands of well-paying
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A lot of those jobs are first nations, by the way, that's all coming to an end.
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So by the time that we go to the next election, whenever the NDP is going to find it to be
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most convenient for them, there is really nothing that they're going to be able to point
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to and say, well, we started that and it's finished because that's not the reality.
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They'll say, well, we got Site C done over budget.
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And I think that, you know, that's part of the challenge here.
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And, you know, obviously under David Eby, it's not going to be a pipeline.
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Or if it is, it's going to be him, you know, you know, chained to the bulldozer.
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I mean, you start to have a little bit of hope with Carney and Premier Smith working together
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And then there's a sort of, you know, impediment, which is just this left in government here
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I want to switch gears a little bit and just ask you about the other issue I hear from people
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here in British Columbia, concerns over is crime, drugs, homelessness.
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You know, we see David Eby coming out saying basically that the delegitimization or that
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it didn't work, that having legal drugs didn't work and that we should probably
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So what was your position on the issue of drug use and how it's connected to, like,
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homelessness, crime, the sort of encampments that you see here around Vancouver cause a
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Again, like, the unfortunate part with all this is that you have, you have, and I just wish,
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I just wish the government, the NDP government would be transparent, right?
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Is you have a government that continues to over-promise and under-deliver.
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So 2020, they campaigned on the fact that they believed in involuntary care, involuntary
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In 2024, they campaigned on voluntary care and involuntary treatment.
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You know, you can walk these streets, doesn't have to be downtown Vancouver, it can be Surrey,
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it can be Prince George, it can be Quenelle, it can be Terrace, it can be all over this
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And you see people on the streets that are suffering.
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And there's people on our streets that we know cannot make decisions for themselves.
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No, we, you don't need the police to tell you that.
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You don't need the health professionals to tell you that.
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You can go out to any corner of this province and see it for yourself.
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So it's one thing not to do anything about it, but what's worse is actually to campaign
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And I think that that's part of the frustration is that we can all see this and it's getting
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And, you know, when you look at decriminalization and things like that, the police were never
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But the issue is, is that, you know, very clearly we need to make investments in recovery.
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We need to make sure we close the gaps in the system between detox and treatment and
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everything like that, that, that there is a streamlined process for people to get better.
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But what this government continues to do is to double down on the fact that safe supply,
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But, you know, allowing hard drug use to continue is, is the way forward.
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And if you go to other areas, whether it's Portland, San Francisco, you can see that in
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So I don't know why, you know, there's, why we continue to go down this road when we know
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That seems inhumane to leave people out under their own devices when they can't even really
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That's another thing I hear from parents is concern over just how ubiquitous fentanyl has
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So, you know, you don't even know what you're taking necessarily, and they're terrified for
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what their children might, might not experiment with.
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And it's like a different kind of world out there.
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And so is, is a position of the BC conservatives to like crack down on, on like fentanyl import
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And I think part of that is, is that we actually have to police our ports.
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And again, that's something that we campaigned on.
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And the NDP don't think that that's a priority.
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And I think that you look around and you can see the different access points into British
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You think that maybe we need to do things a little bit differently.
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But for me is that, you know, if you look at the people that are really suffering on the
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streets, you also have to look at the exploitation.
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Whether it's sexual exploitation or criminal exploitation, it's, it's rampant.
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And, you know, the fact is, is that, you know, providing more to these individuals is, is not
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What the remedy is, is, is actually a path to recovery, a path to treatment and, you know,
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I just wanted to ask you, so what is the process for selecting a new leader?
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And when are we going to have a new leader in the BC Conservative Party?
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So the beautiful part in all that is, is that anybody who takes out a membership in this
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party will have as much say in who the new leader is as I do.
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Nobody, I think, is officially declared at this point.
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We, you know, I think there's people that have put their name out there that says that
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It will be, uh, surely we've got a great leadership committee, uh, being led by Scott
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Lamb, who's former, uh, president of the Conservative Party of Canada.
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So, uh, I'm excited, but like, I think it's great because it's going to be member driven
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and, you know, these individuals are going to go out there.
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They're going to put forward their platform and they're going to be talking about some
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And I, I do believe this is that whoever wins this race will be the next premier of
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And that is, that's exciting because that's what we're electing.
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Well, Trevor Halford, I really appreciate your time.