Opinion: Attacks, especially by Fulmer, Elliot and Findlay, leave Black and Milobar mostly unscathed in fiery debate
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VICTORIA â Candidates for the B.C. Conservative leadership lost no time last week getting rough with each other in their first full leadership debate.
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Caroline Elliott, the commentator and former political staffer, took an early shot at Yuri Fulmer, owner of several A&WÂ fast food franchises and chancellor of Capilano University.
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She accused him of embracing the militant rhetoric of decolonialization, branding non-Indigenous British Columbians as âguilty settlers on stolen land.â Her campaign posted a video with several examples of Fulmerâs sins in that regard.
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Fulmer defended the comments as the âpractical realityâ of doing business and serving as chancellor of a public university under the B.C. NDP.
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He gave back as good as he got, blasting Elliot for denouncing socially Conservative views as âabhorrent.â
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She tried to deny the word. But the Fulmer campaign promptly posted a video confirming she said it during the 2020 controversy over then B.C. Liberal MLA Laurie Throness. Throness had made critical comments against SOGI-123, the sexual orientation and gender resource in B.C. schools.
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Elliott tried to recover by referring to her own upbringing in the Catholic church, declaring that âChristian values belong in our party.â Later she praised J.K. Rowling, the Harry Potter author and critic of the politics of gender identity, as âa bad-assed champion of womenâs rights.â
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Several times, Elliott found herself on the defensive in front of the crowd gathered last Friday at a Vancouver hotel for the 90-minute debate hosted by the Canada Strong and Free Network.
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Kerry-Lynne Findlay, the former federal Conservative MP, got off one of the crowd-pleasing lines of the night in response to a social media posting where Elliott promoted hiring British Columbians.
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âI guess that doesnât apply to your campaign team,â said Findlay, riffing on her rivalâs recruitment of Ontarian Kory Teneycke and other Easterners.
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Elliott then lashed out at Findlay over the 2021 vote in parliament, taken after the Kamloops graves controversy, that recognized residential schools as âgenocidal.â
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âYou whipped your party to vote for the lie that Canada is a genocidal state,â charged Elliott. Findlay fired back that she was not, at the time, the party whip for the federal Conservatives.
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Findlay went after Fulmer over the âunite the rightâ deal he struck with OneBC Leader Dallas Brodie. In return for Brodie agreeing to not run candidates in most of the provinceâs 93 ridings, Fulmer would leave five seats clear for OneBC.
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Findlay questioned the wisdom of conceding five seats in advance in a typically close B.C. election. She wondered how the five would be chosen, and said the deal reflects âlack of experienceâ in the political arena. This from a 10-year veteran of the Canadian Parliament.
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Findlay boasted that sheâd lined up the most endorsements from sitting MLAs. One of those was from Tara Armstrong, independent MLA from Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream.
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