Juno News - Kerry-Lynne Findlay’s first sit-down interview as Conservative Party of BC leader

00:00:00.000 Just a few short weeks ago, Carrie Lynn Finley was one of several candidates competing to lead 0.97

00:00:05.200 the Conservative Party of British Columbia. Today, she's the leader of that party and for the first

00:00:10.520 time, a serious contender to become British Columbia's next premier. I'm here today in

00:00:16.700 Vancouver to discuss with her her remarkable rise. When Juneau News hosted the defining debate

00:00:23.080 of this leadership race, the first debate, I made a prediction. I said the next leader of

00:00:28.040 the Conservative Party of B.C. was standing on that stage.

00:00:31.200 Turns out she was.

00:00:32.740 Finley won by the narrowest of margins,

00:00:35.960 defeating her rivals in a race that tested not only ideas but leadership.

00:00:40.580 One of the reasons she emerged victorious was simple.

00:00:43.160 She showed up.

00:00:44.560 When Conservative members wanted to hear from the candidates directly,

00:00:47.920 she was willing to defend her record, explain her vision,

00:00:51.720 answer difficult questions and make her case

00:00:54.020 before an audience that increasingly gets its news outside the traditional media establishment.

00:01:00.580 Conservative members rewarded that approach.

00:01:02.720 They trusted her with the leadership of their party.

00:01:04.920 But now she faces a much bigger test, winning the confidence of an entire province.

00:01:11.180 British Columbia is at a crossroads.

00:01:13.540 Record deficits, mounting debt, a housing crisis, open-air drug use, public disorder,

00:01:19.400 resource development, and an existential crisis over property rights.

00:01:23.320 borne by the incompetence of David Eby and the late John Horgan.

00:01:27.480 After nearly a decade of NDP government, voters are asking whether British Columbia is headed in the right direction.

00:01:33.420 And Carrie Lynn Finley believes the answer is no.

00:01:36.600 But hopefully she can help it.

00:01:38.800 Today, Juneau News is getting an inside look at the inner workings of her transition team

00:01:42.780 and plans she has for B.C. as she assembles her team and begins the work of preparing an opposition caucus for government.

00:01:49.820 I'll sit down with the woman many Conservatives believe will become the next Premier of British Columbia.

00:01:55.140 We'll discuss her vision for the province, her plans to challenge David Eby,

00:01:59.060 the growing sense of Western alienation felt across British Columbia and Alberta,

00:02:03.600 and whether she can build a coalition broad enough to win power.

00:02:07.300 This is Carrie Lynn Finley's first major sit-down interview since becoming leader of the B.C. Conservatives.

00:02:13.140 I'm Kian Bexte in Vancouver, and this is Juno News.

00:02:17.820 Congratulations on the victory.

00:02:19.820 Thank you. Thank you. It wasn't that long ago, but it feels like a month ago.

00:02:23.820 I can imagine. Your campaign slogan was faith, family, and freedom. I'm wondering what inspired that.

00:02:31.920 Because I believe in all those things, and I'm a freedom seeker when it comes to government policy and to moving forward.

00:02:42.340 I really do believe in a free country we should be able to be a free people with free choices and a free market economy.

00:02:49.820 freedom of speech that's very important and I don't need to tell anyone working with Juneau

00:02:56.460 News about that and that's why independent journalism is so important in Canada right now

00:03:02.940 because we have governments provincially and nationally seeking to I believe censor us

00:03:11.820 a good example is the April 1st Health Care Professions Act that went through here in BC

00:03:18.060 where I've been told by many health care professionals,

00:03:23.320 doctors, some of them specialists,

00:03:25.140 they didn't renew their licenses

00:03:26.700 because of censorship over what they could share,

00:03:30.360 what they could say, and I don't agree with that.

00:03:34.020 Family, I think, is extremely important.

00:03:36.300 I'm a mother of four,

00:03:37.740 and the nuclear family is something

00:03:41.440 that I don't like to see government policy tearing at.

00:03:45.160 I believe in parental rights.

00:03:48.060 On faith, I am a person of faith, and I do believe in interfaith cooperation.

00:03:54.560 I believe in freedom of religion.

00:03:56.780 But my faith and my background is Christian, and it informs who I am.

00:04:03.740 One of the things you just mentioned was censorship.

00:04:06.280 And just a few hours before we sat down for this interview,

00:04:09.400 The Senate in Ottawa, a committee voted 7-1 to support the criminalization up to two years in prison for anything the government deems to be denialism about residential schools, whatever that means.

00:04:23.560 It's not super clear.

00:04:25.620 And one of the things that you've made pretty central in your platform is repealing DRIPA and sort of going back and looking at what has built this country and what are the issues for treaty people, for everyone else.

00:04:38.220 And I'm wondering, how do you balance all this when Ottawa seems to be focused on plugging the airs and just deciding?

00:04:49.500 If a government feels they can only move forward by censoring their own citizens, we have a huge problem.

00:04:59.540 And I think we do have a huge problem here in Canada.

00:05:03.400 but NBC. I'm now the leader of the Conservative Party of British Columbia. I intend to take these

00:05:10.680 issues to British Columbians and to win in an election with clarity and focus on these issues.

00:05:20.760 I'm a negotiator by training and by nature and I am hoping that we can have principled

00:05:28.880 accountable negotiations on these sensitive multilayered issues and get to progress.

00:05:37.360 I'm imagining mostly through economic partnerships, that sort of thing, that benefit

00:05:42.640 all British Columbians. But a government approach that is shutting down opposition

00:05:50.940 through legislation, to me, that's coercion.

00:05:55.880 And I simply don't agree with it.

00:05:58.640 I'll fight it.

00:05:59.780 Fight it from my area of Canada, which is B.C.,

00:06:03.720 where I'm born and bred, where I've raised my own family here.

00:06:08.620 But it does dovetail into my thoughts on a Western alliance.

00:06:13.540 I believe that if we unleash our natural resources here,

00:06:17.220 if we get our fiscal house in order,

00:06:19.700 which is a mess right now. The NDP have economically vandalized our province.

00:06:26.880 If we can get this back into more balance, more accountable government,

00:06:35.160 then I believe that Alberta and Saskatchewan particularly will be open to alliances with us,

00:06:42.320 interprovincial trade barriers being brought down, having more relevance when it comes to trade and commerce.

00:06:48.460 Right now, we have an NDP government where they're not even invited to the table, even with a liberal federal government right now, because they're seen as irrelevant.

00:06:59.700 Well, I don't buy that. This is my province. This is my home.

00:07:04.060 I will be speaking up for British Columbians, and the indications are already there in the short time I've had the role that they are open to talking to us from those governments.

00:07:16.120 and I believe from the Western provinces,

00:07:21.120 and I believe that will lead to us having a stronger voice nationally

00:07:26.120 because we will be more aligned

00:07:28.380 and we will be in a stronger position to push back

00:07:33.080 against some of these federal policies that are meant to contain us.

00:07:37.480 You know, I grew up in Alberta,

00:07:39.680 but I also moved to Fort St. John in northern B.C. for a while

00:07:44.740 where I lived in my primary school years.

00:07:47.640 And, you know, we see Western alienation sort of rearing its head in Alberta

00:07:52.880 with separatist independence referendum coming up.

00:07:56.080 But, you know, the opinions that I see my colleagues and my friends,

00:08:00.700 neighbors having about Ottawa and Alberta are shared by people in Fort St. John.

00:08:05.360 They are.

00:08:06.260 It's Western alienation is not an Alberta issue.

00:08:09.140 So when you see Alberta having a referendum about whether to have a referendum

00:08:13.620 about separation. I mean, it's convoluted, but I think the purpose is pretty clear. And

00:08:17.820 do you hear that from people in the interior of BC or across the province? What does Western

00:08:23.060 alienation mean to a British Columbian and you? It means a feeling of being ignored and

00:08:30.700 underrepresented. We are very much underrepresented through our constitution and through

00:08:39.440 150 plus years of confederation we started out as upper and lower canada and when you have the

00:08:47.380 federal experience i've had and you're back in ottawa i always found there were many people

00:08:53.100 dealing with public policy in ottawa who didn't know anything about bc they'd never been here

00:09:00.080 they'd never really talked to people from here yeah i adopted a posture of educating then

00:09:08.100 advocating when it came to BC issues. And the problem is, often out of Ottawa, they think one

00:09:16.600 size fits all. We'll have policies such as Indigenous policies that will be in place for

00:09:24.340 the whole country, and yet we have such a difference in our Indigenous populations from

00:09:29.640 rather remote and what i would call poorer communities to very wealthy communities here

00:09:38.520 for instance in southwest bc who have a lot of monetary and political clout you cannot treat

00:09:48.820 everyone the same you you have to look at the specifics when you're up in fort st john

00:09:54.300 and that area you have people there who are looking very curiously across the rockies at

00:10:00.320 what albert is doing i don't hear so much that they want to do the same thing here as much as

00:10:06.080 look what albert is doing i mean that's quite remarkable and we understand where that feeling

00:10:11.980 is coming from of being ignored and i see a western led western driven western funded

00:10:20.440 alliances that will have a stronger voice if it comes to being better represented we

00:10:27.860 look at how many senators you mentioned the senate look at how many senators per person

00:10:34.620 for the population how many mps they have in atlantic canada compared to here in the west

00:10:41.680 and our population has been growing we're not keeping up we do not have equal representation

00:10:48.060 We need to, therefore, I think, fight for more provincial autonomy in our confederation.

00:10:57.820 I've always been a federalist because that's what I've grown up with.

00:11:01.740 This is Canada. I love being Canadian.

00:11:05.140 But I don't love being Canadian under the certain policies.

00:11:09.060 Fair enough.

00:11:12.080 I'm an Albertan, so I understand exactly what you're saying.

00:11:15.340 I hear that you're going to meet with Premier Smith in Alberta this week.

00:11:20.900 I'm looking forward to seeing her.

00:11:22.420 We had a good conversation on the phone last night.

00:11:25.400 She reached out right away, which I appreciate it.

00:11:29.620 What did you guys talk about?

00:11:30.940 What has she gotten right?

00:11:33.680 We didn't have a long conversation.

00:11:35.740 There will be time for that.

00:11:37.120 But basically, I felt encouraged by what she was saying.

00:11:41.260 She's very interested in what I've been saying with Western Alliance.

00:11:45.060 ideas and with wanting to get our economy going and wanting to be back at the table

00:11:51.100 with Alberta in inter-provincial, inter-jurisdictional, but also national and

00:12:00.860 provincial at the table. She's interested to have those kinds of like-minded conversations.

00:12:09.780 When you see what she's done as premier, what do you want to emulate?

00:12:14.140 or if anything? Oh, there's several areas that I'm very intrigued by. I don't know that it would

00:12:19.880 be a copycat of that, but there would be similar legislation coming from a Finley government on

00:12:26.860 things like education, on indigenous relations, on dealing with protecting our children,

00:12:34.720 because I've also said I want to ban gender changing surgery and hormone therapy in minors. 1.00

00:12:41.660 How many genders are there? 1.00

00:12:43.560 Two. 1.00

00:12:45.380 It shouldn't be.

00:12:48.640 I think I heard a Liberal cabinet minister say there's 72,

00:12:52.560 so I got lost in that count.

00:12:55.640 But that doesn't mean adults can make their decisions,

00:12:59.980 and they will make their decisions.

00:13:02.680 Perhaps I'm even a bit libertarian in that side,

00:13:05.840 but adults can make their decisions.

00:13:07.860 But children who cannot yet vote,

00:13:10.980 who cannot sign a contract who cannot drive yet even I do not agree with altering them

00:13:20.400 hormonally or surgically and changing the whole trajectory of their lives when they

00:13:26.420 do not yet have I mean I'm a lawyer so we determine legal capacity all the time

00:13:32.300 and if you don't have legal capacity I do not believe that adults in your life whether they

00:13:39.840 be health care professionals or even parents, frankly, in that regard, that they would make

00:13:46.600 those decisions for you. Let you grow up, make your choices. During the leadership race, you

00:13:52.100 attended the Juneau News debate. We said that... I did. I was one of the mighty four who went to

00:13:58.420 the debate, yes. We predicted there that one of the people on stage was going to become premier

00:14:03.740 one day or at least the leader of the Conservative Party. And do you see a shift in how British

00:14:09.680 Colombians are getting their media, getting their news. Like, why was it important for you to show

00:14:14.600 up when, you know, the leader of the race at the time, we thought it was Carolyn Elliott. She said,

00:14:19.140 you know, she has more important things to do. She has more memberships to sell. I don't want

00:14:22.100 to navel gaze too much, but why was it important to show up? Well, I really believe in the power

00:14:28.460 of independent conservative media because we don't see it in the mainstream media.

00:14:35.740 a lot of the opinions we I guess share and so I thought it was very important to support

00:14:43.980 that independent media voice but also quite frankly Juno News reached out early it was

00:14:50.920 organized we knew the dates we knew the the venue although the venue had to change well we sold so

00:14:58.440 many tickets I mean there was great interest in it from my supporters I had an interest in it

00:15:04.540 But also it's just the chance, the chance to debate people in what is a competition.

00:15:11.280 It's an inter-family competition.

00:15:13.400 It's definitely a competition.

00:15:14.600 It got pretty raucous at times. 0.93

00:15:17.200 One of the things that came up in that debate that made me think, well, maybe Carolyn has something going here,

00:15:27.360 was when we asked if you supported, in the rapid-fire section,

00:15:33.660 if all the candidates supported non-citizens being members of the party,

00:15:38.420 voting in nomination races, voting for the leadership.

00:15:42.100 All the men on stage said, yeah, or it's not something I care about.

00:15:46.420 You actually said no in that moment.

00:15:48.640 That's one of the moments in the debate where there was actual dissent,

00:15:52.340 and you said no, and that's, I think, something that a lot of Canadians are looking at,

00:15:55.960 whether you're in Ontario, what happened to Nate Erskine-Smith,

00:15:59.540 or in Alberta, the United Conservative Party just passed policy

00:16:03.000 banning non-citizens from being party members.

00:16:05.660 Is that something you're looking to do? 0.51

00:16:07.920 Well, from my perspective, we've had these rules in place for a long time,

00:16:13.440 federally and provincially, where people who are PRs but non-citizens,

00:16:19.000 And we even encourage young people, 14 and up, to join and be part of learning and being part of the movement.

00:16:31.140 However, in a vote, when it comes to election, only citizens are supposed to vote.

00:16:37.260 and it concerns me having looked quite closely at several elections now both provincial and

00:16:46.760 federal that there is that there are some non-citizens who end up voting either because

00:16:55.300 somehow they get on an electoral list that is not caught out it's really not pursued with much

00:17:01.760 bigger as far as I can see from election officials and there has to be some value in citizenship

00:17:13.420 and one of the values is you get to determine the political future I just don't think ultimately

00:17:21.320 that just trying to encourage people to be part of a movement means you go over to where people who

00:17:30.500 haven't taken the rights of citizenship or weren't born here

00:17:34.480 are actually determining outcomes. I don't, I'm personally

00:17:38.540 uncomfortable with that. Do you think David E.B. would agree with you?

00:17:42.440 No, but I don't think he'll agree with me in much.

00:17:46.740 Let's talk about that a little bit. What are the things that he's done and the late

00:17:50.540 John Horgan has done? They've been in government for a long time. Yes. What have they done

00:17:54.440 that you're going to deal with in the first few days of a Finley government?

00:17:57.720 right off the bat we need to do review core reviews of our fiscal situation of our legislative

00:18:06.620 situation we also need to look at the upper echelons of the public service as well as the

00:18:13.040 public service overall i have a great respect for the hard-working men and women who pay taxes

00:18:19.400 and governments don't create wealth they prioritize the spending of our taxpayer dollars

00:18:26.060 They have treated that frivolously, recklessly.

00:18:29.980 They have put us in $183 billion and growing in debt in four years.

00:18:34.900 One thing I will praise John Horrigan for is that he actually was far more fiscally competent

00:18:42.360 and fiscally stable than David Eby's government has been.

00:18:48.680 More, Stephen.

00:18:49.320 I mean, it's only four years under David Eby, and he took us to this very dangerous level of debt.

00:18:59.340 Without delivering, you know, I say to people when I go traveling the province, we have 55% growth in the public service.

00:19:09.640 Do we have 55% better delivery of services?

00:19:13.120 I've never had one person put up their hand, and I've met thousands of people, because we don't.

00:19:18.420 So where is the justification for growing your employed numbers just through taxpayer money and not encouraging small business risk, entrepreneurship, unleashing our resources, getting those good paying jobs, helping people move forward?

00:19:37.720 we're losing investment we need to attract investment we're losing our professionals

00:19:43.320 for things like the HPOA I mentioned we are not doing the things that need to be done by government

00:19:52.180 to bring hope and bring prosperity bring optimism you're from Alberta you mentioned well we're

00:19:59.160 losing people to Alberta one of my daughters and her young family lives in Alberta my sister-in-law

00:20:06.120 lives there my brother lives you know we're losing people to alberta but not just alberta

00:20:11.660 other parts of canada the states other countries because they don't see a future in this gorgeous

00:20:18.580 province we have no one would leave the weather and the beautiful sunshine here and the west coast

00:20:24.380 sunshine i know you've been in tofino and other places like that i mean they wouldn't leave it

00:20:30.340 if they felt it was affordable and they had opportunity here we've got to turn that around

00:20:35.900 And he, more than any other in the NDP government specifically, have dashed the hopes of thousands of people over their decade in power.

00:20:47.100 So you've earned the trust of party members, of conservatives.

00:20:51.540 I mean, it was razor thin, but it seems to me from everyone I've spoken to that it was quick to rally and coalesce around the leader.

00:20:58.600 But winning the trust of British Columbians is very different.

00:21:02.080 um we saw we you know we see this all the time with conservative leaders running for the party

00:21:07.540 erin o'toole did this uh as the true blue candidate very right wing had a lot of right

00:21:13.180 wing talking points and then to win the trust of the broad electorate to change who they are

00:21:18.920 and i think people expect that a little bit but to what extent uh you're talking to different people

00:21:25.120 but now you're dealing with a um a cbc who says you're just like donald trump somehow and that

00:21:31.080 actually resonates with some section of the population so how do you juggle all that well

00:21:35.540 I think I answered that by saying I'm Canadian born and bred and we don't even have the same

00:21:42.460 governmental system so it's just silly to say things like that in my view I discount it right

00:21:49.740 from the get-go but when I first got into this race we did look at public opinion we did some

00:22:00.400 internal polling we did talk to people but of course I've been in public service for many years

00:22:06.020 now so I'm always talking to a lot of people and there was two points they made to me one and this

00:22:12.340 is either members because we didn't start out with a big membership it's grown from seven to

00:22:16.880 42,000 but the members that were there as well as people who describe themselves as potential members

00:22:25.220 willing to take out a membership there were two big things that that was coming through first of

00:22:31.040 all they wanted a conservative to lead the conservative party of bc which shouldn't be

00:22:36.200 such a big moment but it seemed to become that secondly they said we don't want somebody who

00:22:44.660 says they're conservative sounds like a conservative and ends up not being conservative

00:22:50.360 those are two elements of perhaps a similar point but they're not the same and that led me

00:23:00.920 to look at what is my record where have i come from the other people in the race where have they

00:23:08.740 come from were they saying the same thing two three years ago they're saying no not all of

00:23:13.260 them were and it's all on video today in this world and I wanted to assure people that I am

00:23:21.800 reliable in that sense I think that's the word I used and it interestingly led I saw other

00:23:31.020 competitors trying to talk more like me I even see them stealing some of my lines

00:23:36.520 in the sense of copying them.

00:23:39.740 And that's okay.

00:23:42.780 You know, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, they say.

00:23:46.420 But it comes naturally to me,

00:23:48.620 whereas they were looking to a talking point,

00:23:51.760 oh, I should add that into what I was saying,

00:23:53.940 as opposed to just being who you are.

00:23:55.980 I think people see me.

00:23:57.920 I am who I am.

00:23:59.680 So you're not going to be changing.

00:24:00.700 I'm not changing.

00:24:01.660 I think I used Margaret Thatcher's words in one of the debates,

00:24:08.020 and I said, because they called her the grocer's daughter,

00:24:12.860 and I said, well, this electrician's daughter isn't for turning,

00:24:16.360 because I think it's a good statement.

00:24:19.600 And she also said, first you win the argument, then you win the vote.

00:24:25.680 And I've had people say, well, how are you going to bring, you know,

00:24:28.280 middle-of-the-road people along?

00:24:30.440 And I say, because I am talking about hope and opportunity and having a feeling of a future and having passion for getting BC back to where people want to come here, want to invest here.

00:24:46.240 I think that will resonate.

00:24:47.840 Everybody wants good paying jobs.

00:24:49.920 Everybody wants lower taxes.

00:24:51.920 They don't mind paying taxes to a certain extent.

00:24:54.700 but when you're working more for the government than the government is working for you

00:24:59.500 people start to get upset they start to get angry they start to get frustrated

00:25:04.640 and when their business their small business goes down because of lack of the flow of currency

00:25:11.660 in the economy that's a terrible feeling or they retire early way before they intended to

00:25:18.600 because their business is floundering.

00:25:20.560 I hear these stories every day.

00:25:24.200 I believe we can turn it around.

00:25:26.460 I believe we can do that with clarity and focus,

00:25:28.940 and I think people will like it.

00:25:32.040 Awesome.

00:25:32.300 Well, I have more questions, but I know you're very busy.

00:25:35.800 You're meeting with MLAs, your whole caucus right now.

00:25:39.440 What are the next steps for you, just quickly?

00:25:42.060 I'm meeting with every member of caucus as best I can,

00:25:45.560 and I've been doing that for two days,

00:25:48.100 plus being able to have an interview like this,

00:25:50.900 and I appreciate you coming here to do this.

00:25:55.400 So it has been very busy, but it's a good kind of busy.

00:25:59.960 It's a unifying exercise.

00:26:02.240 It's bringing people together.

00:26:03.300 I've had my first caucus meeting on Sunday afternoon,

00:26:06.420 which was very positive, and I want to continue in this vein.

00:26:10.360 I will be working hard, and they will see someone who leads by example

00:26:16.160 who's collaborative but within a structure i do expect people to be respectful business-like in

00:26:22.480 their approach learn their portfolios it's always my approach it seemed to be a successful approach

00:26:28.560 it was something stephen harper seemed to appreciate back in the day when he put me

00:26:32.520 into cabinet so and this is a discipline i have from my legal career as well i'm very optimistic

00:26:39.540 where we're going great well i guess i'll see you in alberta here soon when you yeah i guess

00:26:45.260 the premier there. So thank you so much. I appreciate it.

00:26:47.940 Thank you for checking out this interview with Carrie Lynn Finley. Juno News is routinely

00:26:53.220 on the cutting edge of breaking news in this country. No matter where it happens,

00:26:57.520 we are there bringing the news to you. If you want to support the work that we're doing,

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00:27:17.380 I'd really appreciate it. Go to JunoNews.com.

Juno News - June 03, 2026

Kerry-Lynne Findlay’s first sit-down interview as Conservative Party of BC leader

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