VICTORIA — Two former B.C. Conservatives now sitting as Independents say they voted with their consciences when they helped the governing NDP shut down debate on changes to Freedom of Information rules in a 3 a.m. vote.

Ex-colleagues of Amelia Boultbee and Elenore Sturko accused them of joining the “NDP farm team” and having an “orange epiphany” by voting with 46 NDP legislators to advance the legislation, while the Conservatives, three other Independents and two B.C. Greens voted against.

Both Sturko and Boultbee say they judged on merit the amendments to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, that the Conservatives say will hurt transparency and accountability.

Boultbee, who quit the Conservatives last October, says she’s “unconstrained” by ideology and has not received an offer to join the NDP.

Sturko meanwhile says the bill would have advanced without her vote, and she did “due diligence” on the amendments.

Harman Bhangu had said on social media that the pair were “weak independents,” who “have officially been called up to the BC NDP farm team,” while colleague Korky Neufeld said in a video that they had had “an orange epiphany” and lost a chance to hold the government to account.

Sturko, a former RCMP officer who represents Surrey-South, says the Conservatives “have been quite hostile” toward her since she was kicked out of the caucus last September.

Like Sturko, Boultbee says she likes parts of the bill, and rejects Bhangu’s claim that she had switched sides.

“I’m not asking, and they have not offered me anything,” Boultbee said of the NDP. “We are debating a piece of legislation, because we are trying to solve a problem for British Columbians. It’s that simple.”

Interim Conservative leader Trevor Halford said Thursday that his caucus would still be debating the bill if government had not shut down debate.

He says the two Independent MLAs will have to justify their votes to their constituents.

“For us, we are focused on holding the government to account on an egregious piece of legislation,” he says. “That, to me, is a no-brainer. I don’t know how they get up and support this.”

Both Boultbee and Sturko say they look forward to reviewing the legislation at committee stage before third reading.

Critics say that the bill will make it more difficult to access government records, while the government says it modernizes and streamlines the legislation by giving public bodies more flexibility when it comes to responding to information requests.

Among other changes, it gives the B.C. Privacy Commissioner the power to allow public bodies to ignore requests that are deemed abusive or that would slow down operations.

The legislature rose around 4 a.m., before sitting again at 10 a.m. Thursday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 7, 2026.

Wolfgang Depner, The Canadian Press