Elections BC says a website set up in 2024 to demand the firing of then B.C. Conservative leader John Rustad wasn’t the work of disgruntled members, as it claimed, but was instead created on the orders of the rival BC United Party.
The election body says it has penalized BC United $4,500 for false advertising via the firejohnrustad.ca website in the pre-campaign period before the 2024 provincial election.
The website was set up in August 2024, before BC United folded its campaign and leader Kevin Falcon called for voters to support Rustad’s Conservatives instead.
Elections BC says it was told of the website and a mail out sent to “select voters,” as part of an ad campaign that was purported to be the work of B.C. Conservatives opposed to Rustad’s leadership.
But Tuesday’s determination letter outlining the investigation says BC United was behind the mail out and website, under the direction of senior campaign officials, with the ploy executed by a Calgary-based political marketing company called Sovereign North Strategies Inc.
Despite folding its campaign and vanishing from the political scene, BC United still exists as a party, led by Falcon, who could not be reached for comment on Thursday.
A message left at his luxury car storage business in North Vancouver was not returned.
Neither Sovereign North Strategies nor its managing partner Cameron Davies, who heads the separatist Alberta Republican Party, could be reached for comment.
The elections regulator says the mail out featured a “false statement” about Teresa Wat, who had defected from BC United to the Conservatives, falsely accusing her of “offences under the Foreign Interference and Security of Information Act, and the Criminal Code of Canada.”
The determination letter does not name BC United’s campaign manager or deputy campaign manager who retained Sovereign North Strategies.
It says the deputy campaign manager indicated the advertisements were commissioned by the campaign manager who approved the material.
The determination letter says BC United told Elections BC that it “has no knowledge of who arranged or authorized this advertising.”
The party also claimed that an invoice for the work “appears to have been fabricated” in order to place blame on the BC United.
But Elections BC communications director Danielle Johnston says BC United was responsible for hiring Sovereign North. She declined to name the campaign officials involved.
Deputy chief electoral officer Kerry Pridmore says in the determination letter that BC United did not take any steps to verify allegations in the ad campaign.
“The distribution of false information during elections can undermine public confidence in our democratic institutions and the security of our elections,” Pridmore says.
Falcon suspended the party’s campaign, withdrawing it from contention in the last provincial election on Aug. 28, 2024, and urged the party’s voters to support Rustad’s Conservatives.
This report by Darryl Greer of The Canadian Press was first published April 8, 2026.