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Amelia Boultbee, MLA for Penticton-Summerland, has joined the B.C. NDP, according to the party caucus.<\/p>\n
She was initially elected as a B.C. Conservative in 2024, but left the party a year later to become an Independent after expressing dissatisfaction with former party leader John Rustad.<\/p>\n
Boultbee said at a news conference Friday that she got into politics to serve her community.<\/p>\n
“When I think about who is best positioned to do this work, my confidence is with this premier and this caucus,” she said.<\/p>\n
Premier David Eby said at the news conference that Boultbee stood up for “principle” and human rights when she left the Conservatives.<\/p>\n
“I am incredibly appreciative and recognize the courage that it takes to make a step like this,” he said.<\/p>\n
Eby added that Boultbee brings experience as a lawyer to the NDP caucus and said she would “anchor” the NDP in the Okanagan.<\/p>\n
Before her election to the B.C. Legislature, Boultbee was a Penticton city councillor.<\/p>\n
Boultbee took a shot at Friday her former party and its new leader, Kerry-Lynne Findlay, saying the promised “big tent party”<\/a> is getting smaller by the day.<\/p>\n “With a new leader more consumed with divisive, Donald Trump-style populism than with things that actually matter to people, it’s clearer now than ever that they’re offering no real solutions,” she said.<\/p>\n Eby said Boultbee reached out to his party and no promises were made to her around any specific initiatives.<\/p>\n “It was done so on a purely voluntary basis with no offers made to Amelia about what would be delivered to her.”<\/p>\n The new caucus member has given the NDP a two-seat majority.<\/p>\n Eby’s slim majority has been a point of tension, particularly when multiple MLAs internally spoke out against the premier’s plan<\/a> to suspend sections<\/a> of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) earlier this year.<\/p>\n Leaving the Conservatives<\/p>\n At the time she left the Conservatives in October 2025, Boultbee said it was because of Rustad’s “failed leadership.”<\/p>\n “He has invited me to \u2018get the F out\u2019 if I don\u2019t like it, and I\u2019ve taken him up on that offer,” she said then.<\/p>\n Rustad accused Boultbee of leaking internal caucus information to the media, but Boultbee said his claim was a “bold-face lie.”<\/p>\n When she announced she was leaving the Conservatives, she said she would return to the party if it had a new leader.<\/p>\n But after Rustad was ousted<\/a> in December, and Findlay was elected in May<\/a>, Boultbee remained as an Independent.<\/p>\n Boultbee has said she considers herself a centrist when it comes to her political leanings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":778590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-778589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=778589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/778590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=778589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=778589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=778589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}