The B.C. Conservative Party has cut ties with a Denman Island doctor whose licence was suspended in 2022 for signing mask and vaccine exemptions and making statements contradicting the regulatory college, just hours after announcing his candidacy this week.
The party described Stephen Malthouse on its website and social media accounts as a “seasoned family physician” in a March 27 announcement of his candidacy in the Ladysmith-Oceanside riding. By evening, all posts related to Dr. Malthouse had been deleted.
Party president Aisha Estey later announced on social media Dr. Malthouse was no longer a candidate.
“Dr. Stephen Malthouse is no longer a candidate for the Conservative Party of British Columbia,” Ms. Estey wrote in a March 28
post. “We thank him for putting his name forward and we wish him all the best.”
The party did not offer any further explanation in its post and has yet to comment beyond its prepared media statement.
“We are a new party, we have grown at a record pace, but some mistakes are bound to happen,” Ms. Estey said in the statement. “Unfortunately, we nominated a couple of candidates who ultimately weren’t the right fit for our team. We wish them all the best, and we thank them for putting their name forward.”
Doctor Speaks Out During Pandemic
Dr. Malthouse, a family physician with a practice spanning more than four decades, is known for speaking against COVID-19 mandates in the media and for appearing at rallies opposing public health measures.His licence was
suspended by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C. in March 2022 after being a member of the regulatory body since 1978. The college accused him of signing vaccine and mask exemption forms “that he knew included false statements.”
The public notification for his suspension also said he “stated medical conclusions absent any objective medical evidence, and provided diagnoses and courses of action potentially harmful to patients; and used his status as a registrant of the College to attempt to circumvent public health orders.”
The college’s directory of physicians listed Dr. Malthouse’s status as suspended as of March 29.
Although Dr. Malthouse didn’t comment on his suspension, he spoke out after the college warned doctors they could be penalized for contradicting COVID public health guidance.
“We really need to have scientific debate about these topics rather than just having rules and regulations and attempts just to make doctors follow the policy alone,” Dr. Malthouse said in a May 2021 interview.
Dr. Malthouse also penned an
open letter to provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry in October 2020 in which he called masks “useless and even harmful” against COVID-19.
His letter talks about the “catastrophic effects” of lockdowns, saying they led to an increased level of mental health issues, drug overdoses, and suicide as well as an increase in heart attack deaths due to “fear, anxiety and cancelled hospital procedures.” Food insecurity, domestic violence, and child abuse also “skyrocketed,” he said.
“How is it possible that a doctor with your previous training and experience did not anticipate the collateral damage of your public health policies — the economic disruption, the psychological and physical health consequences, and the deaths from despair?” he wrote.
The Epoch Times contacted Dr. Malthouse for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.
Second Candidate Dropped
Dr. Malthouse is not the first candidate to be dropped by the B.C. Conservative Party this year.The party named Jan Webb as its candidate for Esquimalt-Colwood in a Jan. 1 Instagram post. While that post remains online, her profile has been removed from the party’s website and platform X account. Ms. Webb had a decades-long nursing career, serving in both hospitals and the community with a special focus on senior care, according to the post.
Ms. Estey addressed the matter in a now-deleted tweet. She said Ms. Webb had been removed as a candidate after she urged the public to stay away from people “recently injected due to the phenomenon of spike protein shedding,” presumably referring to COVID-19 shots.
“Webb is a trained nurse, and frankly she should know better than this,” Ms. Estey said.
B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad is no stranger to political fallout from speaking out on contentious topics. He was kicked out of the BC Liberal caucus in 2022 after reposting a tweet by Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore challenging the idea that carbon dioxide is the “control knob of global temperature” regarding climate change. Party leader Kevin Falcon scolded Mr. Rustad for speaking out on climate change on behalf of the caucus, saying “politics is a team sport.”
Mr. Rustad, who was the MLA for Nechako Lakes, defended the post, saying he would never “support policies brought forward by environmental elitists to punish everyday British Columbians and families who are already dealing with out of control inflation.”
Mr. Rustad joined the Conservative party last February and was acclaimed as leader a month later.
A recent Mainstreet Research poll put the B.C. NDP slightly ahead of the B.C. Conservatives at 39.6 percent support and 34.2 percent support respectively. The Opposition B.C. United would grab 14.2 percent of the vote and the B.C. Green Party 9.6 per cent.
The provincial election is set for Oct. 19.
The Canadian Press contributed to this report.
