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Former British Columbia premier Christy Clark’s potential Liberal leadership bid is already off to a rocky start.

Clark has been forced to walk back her adamant denial that she was previously a Conservative Party of Canada member when the Conservatives ponied up the receipts.

Clark has been calling herself a “lifelong Liberal” as she mulls entering the race to replace Justin Trudeau as Liberal leader. Clark was the leader of the B.C. Liberal party, which drew support from federal Liberals and Conservatives at the time. The party later rebranded as B.C. United and ultimately suspended its campaign to support the B.C. Conservatives in last year’s provincial election.

In 2022, Clark was actively supporting former Quebec premier Jean Charest’s bid to lead the federal Conservatives.

“I’m joining the party so that I can support my friend Mr. Charest and what I think he could bring to the national dialogue. I do think he would be a devastating opponent for Mr. Trudeau,” said Clark in an interview with the Conservative Journal of Canada.

Clark later told the Canadian Press she had received her ballot and planned to cast it for Charest.

However, in a weekend interview with CBC’s Catherine Cullen, Clark said there was no membership and no ballot.

“I didn’t, and I never got a membership and I never got a ballot,” said Clark.

Clark also told Cullen she hounded the party asking where her ballot was – which Cullen pointed out was curious given that Clark would only have been expecting a ballot if she had taken out a membership.

When Cullen referred to a statement from a Conservative Party of Canada spokesperson confirming Clark had previously been a Conservative member, the former B.C. premier accused the party of fabricating its records and challenged them to show proof.

“Why don’t they come out and show my membership or my ballot? They never sent me any of those, although I wouldn’t put it past them to manufacture one of them,” said Clark. “I said I wanted to support him (Jean Charest), I said I would join the party, at the end of the day I never did.” 

Jenni Byrne, the chief adviser to Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, then published a screenshot of the Conservatives’ internal membership database showing a membership purchase by Clark.

After the exchange blew up online, Clark wrote it off by saying “sh*t happens.”

“Well, I misspoke. Sh*t happens. Lesson learned,” she wrote. “I have always been clear that I supported Jean Charest to stop Pierre Poilievre. Not backing away from that. He’s the most divisive politician we’ve seen in years and I felt it was my duty as a (Canadian) to stop him in his tracks.”

Speculation has brewed in the past several months about whether Clark is readying herself to run for the federal Liberal leadership, “I am very seriously thinking about it,” said Clark in the CBC interview.

In a statement to True North, Conservative party spokesperson Sarah Fischer confirmed that Clark is a former member of the Conservatives, sharing a screenshot of the party’s data management system.

“Christy Clark purchased a Conservative Party membership through Jean Charest’s leadership campaign. That membership is no longer active,” said Fischer.

“Carbon Tax Christy’s kickoff to her leadership campaign is about misleading not just Liberals, but Canadians.”

In addition to Clark assisting Charest during the 2022 Conservative leadership race, the National Post had reported that Clark was interested in running for the Conservative leadership in 2020, but opted against it because of her concern with her French-language skills.

Clark had also spoken at the Centre Ice Conservatives’ conference in August 2022 in which she emphasized the need for conservatives to moderate their rhetoric and called Premier Danielle Smith’s proposed Sovereignty Act “batsh–t crazy.”

True North reached out to Clark for comment but did not receive a response.

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