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MLA Teresa Wat, who represents the Richmond-Bridgeport riding, says she “can no longer serve” in the B.C. Conservative Party under its new leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay.
Wat said in a news release Wednesday she will sit as an Independent going forward.
She said Findlay had made “serious and unfounded accusations” about her, “including remarks that called my allegiance to Canada into question” and that Findlay had not apologized.
“I cannot continue to sit in a caucus led by someone who has questioned my loyalty without evidence and, when given the opportunity to correct the record, has failed to do so,” Wat said in the release.
CBC News has reached out to Findlay and the B.C. Conservative caucus for a response.
Wat is the fourth MLA to leave the B.C. Conservatives since Findlay was elected party leader in May.
Prince George-Valemount MLA Rosalyn Bird left Tuesday and Ian Paton, MLA for Delta South, left Monday. Peter Milobar, the MLA for Kamloops Centre who ran against Findlay in the leadership contest, left on Aug. 14.
Paton and Milobar announced Monday that they intend to form a new political party.
Wat was a longtime B.C. Liberal (and then B.C. United) MLA but defected to the Conservatives ahead of the 2024 provincial election, shortly before Kevin Falcon folded the B.C. United campaign.
Wat has served as an MLA for a Richmond area riding since 2013. She was a news director at what is now Omni TV and served as a news editor for Ming Pao Daily News and as president and CEO of Mainstream Broadcasting Corporation, according to her MLA biography.
More to come.