B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad admitted to reporters at the legislature on Thursday that during a meeting earlier in the week, he had ordered his caucus leadership to search MLAs' phones to determine if one of them was leaking information.
"Somebody had read out something that was on social media, and everybody expressed concern, like, ‘this has got to stop,'" Rustad said.
He then suggested to his caucus that they deal with the situation by having everyone bring out their phones for inspection.
"Not every single MLA expressed interest, but the vast majority said 'Yes, let's do this, let's look at this now,'" Rustad said, adding the leaker was not found during the meeting.
"We expect discipline in the caucus," Rustad said. "We expect people to be part of our team to be able to move forward, and if anybody's working against that, then we have a series of disciplinary actions that we will be taking.”
When first asked about the incident, Rustad said caucus leadership did not search MLA phones “on a regular basis,” but then admitted the searches did take place during a meeting when it appeared that information was being leaked online in real time.
“There was a tweet that seemed to indicate there was information that had gone out,” Rustad said. “So, we had that discussion, and we dealt with it.”
Rustad would not say who searched the phones or if both personal and work phones were searched.
Things got contentious when a reporter from the Canadian Press asked Rustad if he was paranoid.
“That’s bullshit, shut up, you’re cut off,” Rustad’s chief of staff, Brad Zubyk, told the reporter. “You’re not getting another question, ever.”
Zubyk, standing behind Rustad and in view of television cameras, continued to push, telling the reporter, “You’re done here.”
Rustad recently survived a leadership review, which involved voting by rank-and-file party members, but rumours of discontent within the Conservative caucus persist.
Hours after the review result was announced, he expelled MLA Elenore Sturko from the caucus, accusing her of organizing against him. Sturko said it is “shocking” to see how things have “degraded” within her former caucus.
“I don't understand how caucus members would be able to work under a leader who has so little faith in them, who makes them work under a cloud of suspicion,” she said. “And I, frankly, just don't understand why Mr. Rustad thinks that he can continue this way.”
Attorney General Niki Sharma gave her thoughts at a press conference shortly afterwards. She said she has never heard of a leader doing that to their colleagues.
“In terms of the privacy and the protection of the caucus members and what they contain on their phones,” Sharma said, “it seems problematic to me.”
