VANCOUVER – An analyst says Kerry-Lynne Findlay won the B.C. Conservative leadership race because she is an “authentic champion” of populism within the broader conservative movement.
David Black, who teaches political theory at Royal Roads University in Greater Victoria, says Findlay’s victory over Caroline Elliott confirms the party’s turn toward populism.
While Elliott performed populism, Black says that Findlay didn’t need to do that, because of her populists credentials while serving under former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper and later Pierre Poilievre, the current federal Conservative leader.
The scholar says that Findlay’s acceptance speech not only included traditional right-of-centre themes such as public safety, and comments about the importance of small businesses and individual effort, but also “populist coding” around eastern and global elites holding B.C. back.
Black says that the Conservatives under Findlay will become a more ideological party than past right-of-centre parties like BC United or the former B.C. Liberals, in pointing to her promise to offer a “grand vision of fundamental change.”
But he says Findlay will need to work to unite the party. Elliott’s near-victory threw into sharp relief the divide between its moderate, right-of-centre wing and a populist faction defined by social and cultural conservatism.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 31, 2026.
