New: Ballot Backlash: BC Conservatives open 8-point lead after snap election call, but electorate far from locked in angusreid.org/ballot-backlas…

Thank you, Nechako Lakes. Thank you, British Columbia. Serving you has been some of the most rewarding work of my life. I will not seek re-election. My time is done. The work is not. I pass the torch to the next generation. God bless British Columbia.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Sept. 23, 2026 STATEMENT FROM JOHN RUSTAD, MLA FOR NECHAKO LAKES VICTORIA, BC, Sept. 23, 2026 /CNW/ - John Rustad, MLA for Nechako Lakes and former leader of the Conservative Party of British Columbia, issued the following statement: Serving this province, and serving Nechako Lakes, has been some of the most rewarding times of my life. I am grateful for every year of it. That time is now done. We built this party from the political wilderness to the Official Opposition. Ordinary British Columbians put their trust in us. They believed a common-sense future was still possible here. That trust is the honour of a lifetime. I will carry it with me. As with anything new, there have been growing pains. There is still a great deal of work to do. The party is in good hands with Lorne Doerkson, our interim leader. He is a quality individual. I have confidence in him. David Eby did not call this election to defend what his government has done. He called it to save his job. I do not think the NDP anticipated what that decision would do. It has galvanized this movement. It has pulled people back together. I have given this place what I had to give & I would give it again, however, my time is done, but the work is not. It is time to pass the torch to the next generation. I do not hand them a finished province. I hand them something rarer. I hand them a charge. Forge policy that will unlock the resources of this land. Put our people back to work. Keep families in the towns that raised them. Bring down a debt the NDP has made unsustainable. Do not manage decline. Build. Build a British Columbia worthy of the people who live here, and of the children who will inherit it. To those who take this work up: you have been given a great responsibility. Make this province a place worth living. We need a province that thrives, not one that simply settles for getting by. I will not seek re-election in Nechako Lakes. I thank the people of this riding for the faith they placed in me. British Columbia is not a problem to be managed. It is a place to be built. I have not given up on this province. Not on its land. Not on its people. Not on what it can still become. The mountains do not quit. Neither should we. God bless British Columbia. God bless the people who call it home. -30- SOURCE Office of John Rustad, MLA for Nechako Lakes For further information: Office of John Rustad, MLA for Nechako Lakes Please contact the constituency office. John Rustad is the Member of the Legislative Assembly for Nechako Lakes and former leader of the Conservative Party of British Columbia.

Word count from @Dave_Eby's election campaign kick-off today: Trump (22) conservative (21) United States (13) American (12) American liquor (3) America junior (2) America lite (1) fire (15) firebreak (6) this moment (9) a moment like this (2) terrible moment (1) challenging moment (1) fraught moment (1) existential moment (1) division (4) culture war (4) trade war (2) attack (2) hell no (1) Words he didn't utter: street crime drug treatment ER closures mill closures $13.8 billion deficit credit downgrades runaway debt Fee simple title uncertainty DRIPA reconcilation policy of any kind

David Eby does not need an election to govern. He has a majority. He can pass his bills tomorrow if he wants to. What he wants today is four more years before British Columbians have had a fair look at the bill for nine years of NDP government. This is a waste of taxpayer money. Tens of millions of dollars to send people to the polls two years early so a premier can freeze a map that already works for him. Families in this province are paying more for housing, power, food, and ferries. They did not ask for a $90-million vanity campaign dressed up as standing up to Donald Trump. I have accepted Lorne Doerkson’s invitation to come back to caucus. My time as leader is over. My service to this province is not. We are ready. We will be on the doorstep. We will put the record on the table: deficits, downgrades, empty promises, and a government that lectures the public while it calls an election it does not need. The electorate will not take kindly to this kind of grift. British Columbians know the difference between a mandate and a head start. If Eby drops the writ today, he is telling every voter the same thing. He does not trust you with two more years of his record. He only trusts you when the calendar is short. We are not going anywhere. Get ready.

After 2024, the premier’s file still included a path back to balance Sept 14, 2026 fall update: another $450 million on the deficit, now $13.8 billion. A “serious mistake” on natural gas royalties. $306 million this year. $1.46 billion over five years. Wildfire costs up $614mil

The Conservative Party of BC is welcoming back MLA Scott McInnis. All conservatives across BC must stand together against more NDP economic devastation.

The Conservative Party of BC is welcoming back MLA John Rustad. All conservatives across BC must stand together against more NDP economic devastation.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Sept. 21, 2026 STATEMENT FROM JOHN RUSTAD, MLA FOR NECHAKO LAKES VICTORIA, BC, Sept. 21, 2026 /CNW/ - John Rustad, MLA for Nechako Lakes, issued the following statement after speaking with reporters at the legislature: Kerry-Lynne Findlay has stepped down as leader. That was the right thing for British Columbia. I thank her for it. Last week was a hard week. Caucus spoke frankly, as a caucus should. Kerry-Lynne Findlay then made a difficult decision. That decision was hers. I respect it. I am not going back over the rest. Lorne Doerkson is now interim leader of the Official Opposition. He is a quality individual. A lot of people in this province do not know him yet. They will. He asked me to come back to caucus. This afternoon I accepted. I am returning to do the work, not to run the next chapter from the outside. If the new leadership wants my help, they will have it. I will not force my old vision onto them. It is time for an older generation of politicians to step aside. That includes former premiers Christy Clark and Gordon Campbell. Their time at the centre is over. They need to let this go. My time as leader is over too. Serving this province is not. There have been talks about bringing Conservatives and CentreBC back together. Those talks should succeed. This province cannot afford two opposition parties while David Eby measures the timing of an election. David Eby would rather call an election while this party is finding its feet than defend what his government has actually done. Families in this province already know that record. I have not given up on British Columbia. I do not think the people who live here have either. -30- SOURCE Office of John Rustad, MLA for Nechako Lakes For further information: Office of John Rustad, MLA for Nechako Lakes Please contact the constituency office. John Rustad is the Member of the Legislative Assembly for Nechako Lakes and former leader of the Conservative Party of British Columbia.

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For the first time in 151 years, British Columbia is getting smaller. Forty thousand people, on net, gone in a year. Fourteen percent of the country, forty percent of the decline. You can dress that up with federal immigration charts if you want. Families do not move on charts. They move because they cannot see how they stay. I have been saying this for years. I almost moved a business to Alberta myself, for the same reason thousands of people are looking at Alberta now. You can earn more, pay less tax, and still buy a house. That is not a mystery. That is a verdict. David Eby will blame Donald Trump. The economists on that program already took that excuse away. B.C.’s underperformance started years before any tariff. Costs up. Investment scared off. Public sector grown past what the books can carry. Private-sector jobs going the other way. That is homemade. The population number is the symptom. The disease is this: we used to attract working-age people. We do not anymore. Vancouver already loses people to the Okanagan and the Island because they cannot afford to live where they work. Alberta takes the ones who leave the province. Jock Finlayson said the group you cannot afford to lose is under forty. He is right. Lose them and you lose the next tax base, the next crew, the next small business. Housing is the proof. Starts falling off a cliff. Builders telling me they will work somewhere else because the red tape and the fees make the math impossible. Two hundred and thirty thousand construction jobs sit on that book, more than half of them residential, and that work is shrinking. You do not fix that with another press conference and a housing target nobody hits. And you do not fix it while you keep kicking the legs out from under the industries that actually pay for this place. Old-growth deferrals took the cut down. Permits that never come. Land title so uncertain that appraisers put disclaimers on the paperwork and capital looks at Washington state instead of here. You cannot tell people to stay in British Columbia and then make it illegal, or endless, to build anything that would give them a reason to stay. Ottawa inflated a temporary-resident bubble and then popped it. That is on Ottawa. What is on Victoria is this: when those people left, there was nothing underneath. The big projects were done. The government is broke. The next mines, mills, and export lines were never approved. So the province shrank. People are not abandoning B.C. because they stopped liking the mountains. They are voting with their feet because this government made it too expensive, too slow, and too uncertain to build a life here. That is the problem. That is the part that does not get fixed in 2028 if we keep doing the same thing.

81 days of documented ER closures so far this year. David Eby will tell you things are improving. They are not improving in Mission, where the hospital keeps shutting overnight. They are not improving in 100 Mile House, Merritt, or Lillooet. They are not improving in Fort St. James, where we built a new hospital and still cannot keep the emergency room open. If you need help in the middle of the night, too often there is no one there.

Let’s be clear. Europe can buy what British Columbia produces. That is good business. We are not joining the European Union. What Ursula von der Leyen offered this morning is a title that does not exist. Associate member. There is no such thing in their treaties. Mark Carney was in the room for a standing ovation. Canadians should not confuse applause in Strasbourg with a deal that is good for this country. If Europe wants our LNG, our lumber, our minerals, our food, sell it to them. We have been trying to get product to market for years while Ottawa tied itself in knots. A customer is a customer. Take the order. What we will not do is hand our laws to Brussels. We will not take their labour rules, their climate paperwork, or their immigration system and drop them on a province that is already buckling under housing costs and red tape. People in this province cannot get a mine permitted, cannot find a family doctor, and cannot afford a home. The last thing they need is another layer of government they did not elect. Carney said on Sunday Canada is not applying to join the EU. Then this morning the head of the European Commission used the membership word anyway. That should concern anyone who still thinks this country makes its own decisions. Trade with Europe. Stand with our allies. Do not outsource the country. B.C. workers need buyers, not a new capital.