On Wednesday evening, just hours before he would resign as leader of the B.C. Conservatives, John Rustad stood on a stage at the Union Club in Victoria and thanked his MLAs and caucus staff for their hard work over what he acknowledged had been a “topsy-turvy” few months.

Just hours earlier, over half of his 39-member caucus had indicated, through a lawyer’s letter, that they had signed statements to the party’s board asking for Rustad to resign. They then held a clandestine caucus meeting at which a vote of non-confidence in Rustad was passed and elected Surrey-White Rock MLA Trevor Halford as interim leader.

The coup plan had been set in motion two days earlier, with Courtenay-Comox MLA Brennan Day going from office to office to talk to some of his colleagues and ask them to sign state

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