Juno News - EXCLUSIVE： Kerry-Lynne Findlay on elections committee debacle and BC Conservative race

00:00:00.000 This is Clayton DeMay with Juno News, and we're sitting here with Carrie Lynn Finley,

00:00:04.800 BC Conservative leadership, hopeful. The voting has just started Friday, I believe, right?

00:00:13.200 Started this morning at 8 a.m.

00:00:15.760 Okay, great. So you've been in a little bit of hot water here. There was media reports that there

00:00:22.400 There was an investigation launched by the commissioner of Canada's elections.

00:00:29.420 I just want to get your perspective on that.

00:00:31.440 And for the audience who might not be familiar, like, you know, can you just explain to our audience what, you know, what do you make of those media reports and that you were under investigation and just days before the voting began?

00:00:45.100 well first of all i have absolutely no notice of being under any investigation i've never been

00:00:55.100 contacted by elections canada or anyone on behalf of the commissioner neither has my official agent

00:01:03.340 from that federal run which was about 13 months ago now and it's very curious the timing that

00:01:12.460 this would come up just as we are literally imminently about to vote in the bc conserve

00:01:19.180 party leadership race the voting started this morning at 8 a.m and goes through to 8 a.m on may

00:01:26.300 29th when you say what do i make of it well you know when you're totally taken by surprise i was

00:01:33.420 actually out touring around the interior and the Okanagan here when I heard the news and the news

00:01:43.080 for me was an inquiry by a reporter who said they had a document they were looking at and wanted my

00:01:50.420 comment. I had no idea what they were talking about and I still don't officially but it certainly

00:02:00.360 led to a lot of media attention and speculation which is difficult to respond to when you're being

00:02:08.660 taken by surprise. I do not believe there is an Elections Canada investigation. My understanding

00:02:16.400 is there may be some preliminary inquiries related to an unsubstantiated complaint but

00:02:25.340 But it is also my understanding that if there is actually an investigation, then it is incumbent on Elections Canada to let the subject of that investigation know about it.

00:02:38.320 And certainly any contact I've had with Elections Canada to date, which is well over a year ago, was where they contacted both me and my official agent at the same time.

00:02:52.760 And neither of us have heard anything from them, like I said, for over a year.

00:02:57.120 So this has taken me by surprise. I think it's very unfortunate that it went into the public domain and that LIOC took it seriously enough that they started to look into it and had emergency meetings about it.

00:03:13.960 the good news is I am still on the ballot and intend to stay there. Voting has begun. I've had

00:03:21.360 so many people reach out to me this morning and said, I voted right at 8.15 a.m. or whatever when

00:03:26.820 they got the notice. I'm very encouraged by that. Absolutely. And Juno News spoke to the

00:03:33.860 Commissioner of Canada Elections. They wouldn't confirm an investigation, but they did say

00:03:38.480 they would have to inform you by law if there was an investigation. So I just want to get your

00:03:45.960 response to some of the allegations in that. I know you said they were unsubstantiated claims,

00:03:51.080 but one of them was that $75,000 of undeclared and unpaid services from a corporation were used

00:03:58.480 by the campaign in exchange for promised federal contracts. Is that true? What's your response to

00:04:05.100 that? I've made a very public statement that I put online. Actually, I did a press release

00:04:12.840 because it seemed to be getting all this kind of attention. And that press release very clearly

00:04:20.460 says this is unsubstantiated. It is not true. But I'm encouraged by the fact that our party

00:04:30.020 chose to uphold its founding principles of freedom and grassroots representation. I certainly have a grassroots supportive kind of campaign, I guess you'd say, and this is all about democratic accountability.

00:04:46.660 And I do not think that anyone would agree that someone should be criticized in the public domain when we're talking about unproven, anonymous, semi-anonymous accusations.

00:05:07.880 That's not our form of democracy and accountability.

00:05:12.600 So I've been very clear.

00:05:15.060 i'm ready to fight this leadership race i'm ready to fight into the next election i'm ready to fight

00:05:24.800 for my province and wonderful british colombian patriots who have stood beside me and i will not

00:05:33.100 be taken down by anonymous, undocumented, unsubstantiated rumour and smears.

00:05:44.160 It's unfortunate.

00:05:45.480 I think it's very unfortunate for our democracy that this sort of thing happens because it

00:05:51.880 lessens confidence in our processes.

00:05:54.320 and you know this is a very interestingly timed um report uh in you know of this investigation

00:06:03.660 um i i know it's just speculation but why do you think that this came out at the time that it did

00:06:10.360 i i have no real idea this is part of the problem here i it didn't come to me it came to the press

00:06:21.460 and then to me. So I'm a bit in the dark. I think people will have to make up their own minds about

00:06:28.780 the motivation and the timing. It is interesting and very challenging to have this sort of thing

00:06:36.240 thrown at you just days before voting starts. I think it's most unfortunate it got any audience

00:06:44.620 at all but here we are and it did and certain reporters ran with it even though all they have

00:06:51.860 is something somebody said or wrote as i understand it some of the documentation floating out there

00:06:59.080 is signed by like a concerned citizen or a concerned conservative in other words they've

00:07:05.140 anonymized their role in this and i do believe there were people who brought pressure on those

00:07:11.840 making decisions to disqualify me because it would have been to their benefit but i don't

00:07:18.400 have first-hand knowledge really of any of it absolutely so on a more general note um obviously

00:07:26.320 this is a really important uh race for a lot of people who want to see an end to the uh david evie

00:07:32.560 evie's uh ndp government in bc um what what do you in your view is the the biggest challenges

00:07:40.240 or issues that are holding British Columbia back under Eby's government?

00:07:45.840 Well, honestly, Clayton, the list is so very long that we would probably need to talk for about three hours.

00:07:51.460 And I'd welcome that at some point.

00:07:54.100 But the overarching issue right now, I think, for everyone in the province,

00:07:59.120 is the effect of the Cowichan court decision, which followed the law of B.C.,

00:08:07.420 because we do have rule of law in this country and in our province and that rule of law in bc

00:08:14.540 was what we call dripa which is basically taking undrip out of the united nations and making it

00:08:22.780 into domestic law which was done several years ago with a unanimous vote of the bc liberals

00:08:29.740 and the bc ndp and no doubt a green mla or two in there and uh i find the talk around it very

00:08:41.420 curious because i've heard people say who were bc liberal mlas well we we voted for it the ndp

00:08:50.300 lied to us they said it was just aspirational you don't put aspirations into law aspirations

00:08:58.460 are something you sit and chat about or hope for but you don't put them into the law of the land

00:09:05.340 and in the Cowichan decision what is particularly concerning for all British Columbians is that the

00:09:12.940 judge said that neither the provincial government nor the nor the federal government made any

00:09:19.820 argument whatsoever nor presented any evidence on the issue of supremacy of our land title system

00:09:27.340 which by the way has been in place here for since about 1861 since before we joined confederation

00:09:34.060 and also when you see these court cases involving the crown and i've stood up as a lawyer for the

00:09:41.980 independence of the judiciary but the reality is that when the crown is one of the parties

00:09:50.220 it is the government of the day that chooses the legal team and instructs them on what to argue

00:09:58.200 and what not to argue so when the judge made a point of pointing out that our governments

00:10:06.760 abandon the field on such a pivotal issue this is where we must say we need a change of government

00:10:14.020 We need a government that will speak for and stand up for all British Columbians.

00:10:19.900 And I believe there are many economic partnerships in our future, Indigenous and non-Indigenous.

00:10:26.300 I believe there will be a need for P2 and P3 partnerships.

00:10:31.340 We have failing infrastructure in B.C.

00:10:34.400 Every town I was in up north seems to have a bridge falling down.

00:10:38.900 one of them in taylor is actually part of the alaska highway system though it's pretty serious

00:10:45.440 when truckers have to go over a bridge that's not sound also in quenelle trying to get over the

00:10:53.560 fraser river or under it here in the lower mainland through the massey tunnel this has been

00:10:59.880 a subject of debate for probably 50 years that we need a bridge or a twinning of the tunnel or a

00:11:07.060 bridge and they've been back and forth, still nothing done. These are major infrastructure

00:11:12.220 projects. We have needs on Vancouver Island, on the Island Highway there. There are parts of our

00:11:18.980 Trans-Canada heading east that need real widening and attention to bring them up to modern standards.

00:11:27.100 So we have a lot of work to do and it seems this NDP government is simply not listening.

00:11:32.640 The other troubling thing that most people talk to me about, along with our school and education system, which the Fraser Institute has said our academic performance has been going down for the last five years, that's very troubling, is our resource wealth is being left in the ground.

00:11:55.060 And we see that Atlantic Canada is buying their LNG from Australia, their oil from the Saudis.

00:12:01.020 I mean, this is not the way it should be.

00:12:05.740 I believe B.C. can be an energy powerhouse.

00:12:09.220 I believe it can be an economic powerhouse with good-paying jobs and a bright future,

00:12:14.740 but not under this government.

00:12:17.060 This government chooses to leave it all in the ground.

00:12:20.580 I've heard it opine that all Canadians have a resource wealth of $800,000 per capita,

00:12:29.600 and we're the only jurisdiction really that chooses to invest in ideology instead of the

00:12:35.660 prosperity of our citizens. I agree with the pipeline up north but we also need tankers to

00:12:41.680 be able to come in and pick up what is being delivered through those pipelines. We have a

00:12:48.240 two to three day geographic advantage to Pacific and Asian markets out of our Prince Rupert port

00:12:55.380 over our competitors Seattle and Long Island in California and our pillar resources Clayton

00:13:03.680 are what built this province and they are agriculture mining forestry and fisheries

00:13:13.560 and yet we have an NDP government under David Eby that often refers to these as sunset industries

00:13:20.900 In other words, they want them to fail. And they are not going to do what a Finley conservative government would do, which is get those engines of prosperity working again, getting those good paying jobs available again, and creating opportunity and investment.

00:13:39.720 absolutely um you know there's a lot of you have a few competitors in this race what do you uniquely

00:13:47.240 bring to british colombians on this ballot um that the other candidates don't well thank you

00:13:54.040 for asking that i appreciate it because what i bring is experience and a track record and i'm

00:14:01.560 the only one who has any federal government experience i was a cabinet minister under

00:14:06.360 Stephen Harper in both as an associate minister of national defense and two and a half years

00:14:13.500 as minister of national revenue dealing with the economics of government serving on treasury board

00:14:19.840 which is the last say provincially and nationally on how money gets spent because as we both know

00:14:28.180 governments do not create wealth and governments are there to prioritize the spending of our tax

00:14:35.940 dollars and that's something we did very well and with great success under stephen harper's

00:14:44.900 national majority conservative government we worked very hard on what we call drap debt

00:14:51.780 reduction action plan to bring down the cost of government make sure that there was measured

00:14:58.980 outcomes and delivery where the money was spent worked hard on streamlining procurement

00:15:05.780 when i was associate minister of national defense and had say in procurement we had troops in

00:15:12.260 afghanistan and it was very important that we got kit and equipment to them in a streamlined process

00:15:19.220 which we did at the time also before that i was parliamentary secretary to justice and shepherded 0.76

00:15:25.620 through a major law reform omnibus bill targeting violent repeat offenders, which meant that violent

00:15:32.680 crime went down over 30% in Canada. It would, I think, be even less today if the NDP and Liberals

00:15:41.380 hadn't rolled back a lot of those initiatives on justice. So, you know, I have that track record,

00:15:48.200 that experience of dealing with the major issues the on the economy just for a moment we were

00:15:56.820 coming out of the worst recession and debt since the 1930s and by doing what we did we got back to

00:16:06.040 a balanced balance budget and a surplus but we also along the way brought down corporate

00:16:11.980 and personal income tax we took gst from seven to five percent we brought in income splitting for

00:16:18.560 seniors we brought in the first tax-free child care benefits for people with kids under 18 so

00:16:25.040 we were doing so much work with focus and clarity to make life more affordable i believe if i can

00:16:32.260 move teams to do that at a national level i certainly can do it provincially on the other

00:16:39.420 aspect of that question I also had time under Pierre Polyev as the chief opposition whip for

00:16:47.820 two and a half years there and we had a caucus three times the size no floor crossers when I

00:16:54.540 was whip I'm just saying and we we stuck together we were united unified and yet we didn't agree on

00:17:04.220 100 we had robust discussion we had much the same mix people who are ready to fight and compete

00:17:12.320 under a conservative banner but had different points of view libertarians people who said well

00:17:18.360 I'm a fiscal conservative but a social liberal we had pro-choice pro-life we had people from age I

00:17:25.300 believe it was 21 up to almost 80 you know I mean men and women we had the mix and that is the same

00:17:34.060 mix i see in this provincial caucus what i would do is get to know my caucus right off the bat

00:17:40.460 make sure i understand what motivates each and every one of them and then start recruiting an

00:17:47.340 excellent team to take on the ndp in the next election right on okay well and then so after

00:17:55.980 like, let's say there's a BC Conservative majority government under you. What, you know,

00:18:04.040 what does the first few weeks look like? Do you think what's your first priorities as a majority

00:18:09.000 government? Well, it is my intention to put out a clear 30, 60, 90 day plan, which I've already

00:18:17.460 got in draft, but I do want to talk with the caucus first. I think collaborative leadership

00:18:23.200 is the best, most workable style with message discipline and with parameters in politics.

00:18:31.800 Because I don't think all these MLAs want someone to come in and say, well, I ran a

00:18:38.480 big business and I'm going to tell you what to do.

00:18:40.980 It's not really the style that I found works in politics.

00:18:46.380 Having said that, there are certain things I've signaled and everyone supporting me would

00:18:51.980 agree with.

00:18:52.600 Some are in legislation and some are in rules and regs, which I want to drastically reduce the government gatekeeping through rules and regulations that don't work or that don't serve the public.

00:19:07.760 with that said legislation that requires repeal like drippa or that requires um

00:19:17.420 even tweaking you have a legislative process you can say in day one i'm going to go for it

00:19:24.120 which i would on that issue but you also have to take it through legislative steps debate

00:19:31.460 first second third reading you know there's there's a lot involved committee um oversight

00:19:37.460 which is very important and something i don't think the public knows as much about but honestly

00:19:43.140 that's where most of the work gets done not in qp which gets all the attention um or that is if

00:19:49.760 there's attention and it's usually there but um you know there's a lot to do i want to do day one

00:19:57.340 along with signaling our legislative intentions I want to do a core fiscal review and I want to do

00:20:04.380 a core legislative review because my experience is that when a government has been in power for

00:20:11.420 a decade however they present the books it's usually not as rosy as they want to present them

00:20:19.100 and this government hasn't even now pretended that it's rosy 183 billion in debt in four years

00:20:27.320 and climbing we've had our credit rating downgraded for the fifth time carriage of the

00:20:33.480 debt is our number three line item on our budget that's a travesty 13.3 billion dollar deficit so

00:20:41.260 we already know it's bad i need to know how bad it really is i also would like to see

00:20:47.820 the equivalent of a parliamentary budget officer here in BC. We don't have an independent legislative

00:20:54.280 budget office. I think that's really important. If you're going to talk about a piece of bureaucracy

00:20:59.700 that actually creates more transparency and accountability in government, that would be it.

00:21:06.080 Not having clean energy coaches so they can, a level of bureaucracy that can tell you how to

00:21:13.820 interpret the other level of bureaucracy this kind of thing makes no sense to me on the legislative

00:21:20.040 review one of the reasons we need to look at that again is measuring outcomes what's working what

00:21:25.180 isn't but the language of drippa has been put into so much of our bc legislation the interpretations

00:21:33.300 act the health care professions act the legal professions act the mining act we need to take

00:21:42.660 a look at all that with a view to moving that out of there so that we can move forward on our

00:21:49.660 natural resources. The other third thing I would do is what I call a core review. So there's triple

00:21:56.700 core review of our public service and management at the higher levels. Because if I learned anything

00:22:07.200 being in government and I'm the only one in this race who is governed as a conservative it is that

00:22:14.700 a lot of governments who've been in a long time will put their supporters in those most senior

00:22:21.120 roles even though they're supposed to be neutral they often are not and if you do not move

00:22:27.720 on that then they do not support your agenda even though they are supposed to so I would want to

00:22:35.540 make sure that the senior ranks of our civil service are in fact on board with our vision

00:22:41.840 and move forward from there. Great, absolutely. And I guess just finally, how are you feeling

00:22:48.740 going, you know, this is the voting has already started. It ends on the 29th. How are you feeling

00:22:56.280 going into this right now? Thank you. You know, I'm really feeling really positive. Yesterday was

00:23:04.120 a tough day for sure as people were deciding whether I should stay on the ballot or not

00:23:10.020 but I was while all that was going on I was meeting with the business council of BC in

00:23:18.000 closed session in downtown Vancouver I had just had a zoom meeting the night before with

00:23:24.700 our health care professionals who are very concerned that the government has taken them

00:23:30.180 over on april 1st which i would repeal by the way get back to self-governing professions

00:23:35.420 the night before that i had a zoom call with the cattlemen's association i also have been holding

00:23:43.800 i guess what you call virtual town halls every night and had an amazing engagement hundreds of

00:23:51.000 people from all over the province so i feel that my supporters are motivated they want to see a

00:23:58.220 change they want to have good stewardship of the party itself as we present ourselves as a

00:24:04.780 government in waiting and take on the NDP I feel a lot of optimism today I've had so many calls and

00:24:11.920 texts I voted I voted I voted it started right when it started at 8 a.m and then people are

00:24:18.160 calling me saying so and so and so and so has voted for you so I'm I'm feeling good I feel

00:24:23.920 we're going to win it. I feel we're in the lead. I feel we're strong. And I don't think the plans

00:24:30.920 of others to derail me has worked. Absolutely. Well, all right. Great. Thank you so much for

00:24:38.080 speaking with us today, Carrie Lynn. Thanks for your time, Clayton. I really appreciate it. And

00:24:43.120 I know we'll talk again. Thank you.

Juno News - May 25, 2026

EXCLUSIVE： Kerry-Lynne Findlay on elections committee debacle and BC Conservative race

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