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The agency overseeing elections in B.C. says a campaign to recall Vancouver-Quilchena MLA Dallas Brodie has failed after organizers were unable to collect the required number of signatures from voters in her riding.
Elections B.C. said organizers reported submitting a little over 3,600 signatures but in order to succeed they needed more than 15,000 eligible signatures, which is over 40 per cent of the registered voters in the area.
Because the petition did not reach that threshold, the agency said it will take no further action.
It’s the 31st recall effort launched in the province since 1995, when the Recall and Initiative Act was brought into effect in B.C., and so far, Elections B.C. says, no MLA has successfully been recalled.
WATCH | Vancouver-Quilchena residents sound off about Brodie:
People in Vancouver-Quilchena riding sound off about MLA Dallas Brodie
Residents of the Vancouver-Quilchena riding told CBC News how they felt about MLA Dallas Brodie being kicked out of the B.C. Conservative Party, with many agreeing with Leader John Rustad’s decision to remove Brodie from the caucus for comments she made about residential schools.
Organizers acknowledged they fell short but said the campaign succeeded in engaging “thousands of residents in conversations about the future of the community.”
In a statement Monday, the group said collecting signatures from 40 per cent of eligible voters was always going to be difficult in a riding where voter turnout in the 2024 provincial election was less than 60 per cent.
It said the 3,663 signatures gathered during the campaign represents the highest total achieved by any B.C. recall campaign in the past decade.
The recall bid claimed Brodie, who was expelled from the B.C. Conservative caucus last year, prioritized starting a new political party, OneBC, over the needs of her constituents in Vancouver-Quilchena, including action on affordability, health care and community services.
“I wish my elected representative was someone else,” said campaign proponent Dorothy Cumming. “Someone who had even five per cent of the dedication to working with and for the constituents of this riding.”
Brodie previously rejected that characterization, stating that she and her team had “actively responded” to all constituents who reached out to her office.
An Elections B.C. ballot box cover is pictured at Guildford Park Secondary school near Argyll Lodge in Surrey earlier this year. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
Brodie was elected as a B.C. Conservative in October 2024, but was kicked out of the caucus five months later, after then-leader John Rustad said she had mocked residential school survivors.
She formed OneBC with another former Conservative MLA Tara Armstrong, but they later split when Brodie sought to fire a staffer she accused of antisemitism.
Brodie sits in the legislature as an Independent, since two legislators are required to confer party status.
When the recall petition was approved in May, Brodie said she supported people exercising their democratic rights and noted she too had previously worked on an unsuccessful campaign to recall Premier David Eby in 2023.
That recall bid failed after Elections B.C. said it only gathered 2,737 of the required 16,449 signatures.
Elections BC says the petition’s proponent, Brodie and registered advertisers have until mid-August to submit financial disclosures to B.C.’s Chief Electoral Officer.