(UPDATE: Oct. 20 @ 4:10 pm) – Amelia Boultbee, BC’s newest independent MLA, has provided more context about why she chose to leave the BC Conservative party.
In an interview with NowMedia, the Penticton-Summerland MLA said she left for a variety of reasons.
The first being the membership scandal, which she said was a big real to her and remains unresolved.
“I believe John is completely implicated in this,” Boultbee said. “That was when I first started to take a look at things and wonder if he is ethical, if I can trust him.”
Boultbee said Rustad’s outing of Elenore Sturko this month “just because she was calling him out on his fraud” was another reason she left the party.
Boultbee claimed that Rustad allegedly tried scaring caucus members by being fired.
“I just couldn’t get past that,” she said.
Boultbee, who is a first-term MLA elected in October 2024 after two years on Penticton city council, is the fifth MLA to leave the BC Conservative party.
Most recently, Elenore Sturko was fired from the party. Other members who have left or were kicked out of the party include Dallas Brodie, Tara Armstrong and Jordan Kealy.
When asked about some of the rumours as to why Boultbee left the party, she said they were “absolutely not” true.
“John has accused probably half a dozen members of the party of being a leak,” she said. “He said that was the reason Elenore got kicked out and then the leaks continued after she was gone.”
She affirmed that she was not the leak Rustad accused her of being and the leaks would continue now that she left.
I love my new office! I get to hang out with the cool kids in the basement #totalupgrade pic.twitter.com/zQjrqVGnYf
— Amelia Boultbee (@amboultbee) October 20, 2025
Boultbee said Rustad should consider why his staff and members were scared to confront him that they felt the need to leak information.
When asked about rumours that Rustad may be discriminating against women in the party, Boultbee said “there was a pattern that's really difficult to ignore.”
She claimed that men in the party who have challenged and confronted Rustad and those issues have been worked out.
“But when a woman questions him at all, he goes absolutely bananas,” she said. “He can't handle it. She becomes public enemy number one. He’ll say anything to discredit her. And I can’t ignore the fact that the people he’s chasing out, firing and running off are usually women.”
When asked about Rustad asking for members' phones to be searched, Boultbee confirmed her phones were searched and she was “shocked” when it happened and in hindsight should have refused.
Boultbee said that Rustad’s behaviour has been “erratic” and joined calls for him to resign.
“He has no business trying to be the premier of this province … He is showing people who he truly is right now. He’s revealing the true John Rustad,” she claimed.
She said that if he stepped down, she would consider going back to the party but until that happens, she will be working with Elenore Struko and trying to push through issues for her constituents in Penticton and Summerland.
“The best case scenario would be for John to step down,” she said.
(Original story: Oct. 20 @ 12:50 pm) – Another BC Conservative MLA has left the caucus, marking the fifth departure in recent months.
On Monday, Penticton-Summerland MLA Amelia Boultbee announced that she has left the caucus and will now sit as an independent.
“I did not make this decision lightly. It is the result of weeks of conversations and reflection,” Boultbee said in a statement on her social media.
“I want to assure my constituents that I am still here to serve you, despite the change in where I sit in the Legislature.”
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NowMedia has reached out to the BC Conservatives for comment and to Boultbee for more information that led to her departure.
Boultbee, a first-term MLA who was voted into legislation in October 2024, will join Elenore Sturko, who was fired from her position at the start of October.
Rumours that Boultbee would be resigning were sparked around Oct. 11 after she changed her social media picture to an image of her standing beside Elenore Sturko with.
BC Conservative Leader John Rustad accused Sturko of plotting against him.
She was the former critic for public safety and the solicitor general but Rustad gave that position to West Kelowna-Peachland MLA Macklin McCall.
Sturko spoke out against Rustad after he reportedly claimed Boultbee had “mental health issues” because he reportedly saw her in tears.
John Rustad was recently forced to apologize for slut-shaming a female board member & fired a pregnant staff member.
— Elenore Sturko (@elenoresturko) October 20, 2025
Now, he is trying to shame an elected official by making allegations about her mental health.
Rustad is unfit to lead. https://t.co/TqSYao7mcS
Earlier this year, Rustad also kicked out Dallas Brodie, MLA for Vancouver-Quilchena, who is now the leader of OneBC.
Tara Armstrong, MLA for Kelowna–Lake Country–Coldstream, and Jordan Kealy, MLA for Peace River North, also quit the BC Conservatives.
Armstrong is also part of OneBC while Kealy sits as an independent.
The departures of Sturko and Boutlebee this month come after other internal drama.
Earlier this month, Rustad admitted to having MLAs cellphones searched in a reported effort to identify a leaker inside his caucus.
Calls for Rustad to resign from his position have been ongoing since June.
Amongst this internal drama of the BC Conservatives, the BC NDP have a seven point lead according to a new poll from abacus data.
