B.C. Liberals initially appeared to be looking for a fresh face to lead their party Saturday night, but in they end they chose an experienced and combative leader -- Andrew Wilkinson.
In a long selection process Saturday night February 3, Wilkinson, who was in third place for the first four counts in a weighted voting system, emerged as winner in the fifth count, beating out former Surrey mayor Dianne Watts with 4,621 vote to Watts' 4,079.
The vote took place over three days. Roughly 60,000 Liberal Party members voted, about half of whom would have been new members.
Six candidates were competing for the party's leadership, all but one of whom, Dianne Watts, is a sitting MLA. While she was seen by some as an outsider, Watts has a high profile as a former three-term mayor of Surrey and former Conservative Member of Parliament.
Initially, it looked like the Liberals were keen to choose a leader with no baggage from the Christy Clark government, since Watts and Michael Lee, who was only elected to the legislature last year, were in the lead up until the fourth count.
From the very first count, Watts was in the lead, followed by Michael Lee and Wilkinson. All three held those positions throughout the first four rounds of voting. But in the final count, it flipped in Wilkinson's favour.
“It's interesting in the sense that you had a candidate who, under a first part the post system, would have finished in third place but makes it into first place,” said Mario Canseco, a pollster for Insights West. “So maybe there's something to be said about electoral reform after all.”
Todd Stone, who was initially seen as one of the stronger candidates, may have lost support from Liberal Party members over two recent controversies.
Stone's campaign was forced to disqualify more than 1,300 new members from voting, when it was discovered that there were irregularities with them, like missing emails.
But Stone also took heat for recent revelations that ICBC is facing a financial crisis. As minister of Transportation, Stone was responsible for ICBC during the time when costs were ballooning. The Crown auto insurance corporation is now facing a $1 billion deficit.
But former Finance minister Mike de Jong also took heat over the financial crisis, as it was discovered that fixes for the financially troubled Crown corporation had been proposed, but were ordered scrubbed from a report by de Jong.
Former Energy and Mines minister Bill Bennett, who did not seek re-election in the last election, backed Wilkinson.
He told Vaughn Palmer from the Vancouver Sun in a live-stream that the Liberals needed a tough leader like Wilkinson to take on the NDP because its leader, Premier John Horgan, is “no slouch” as a political foe.
“We could have four years of this in the House with them” Bennett said. “Whoever goes up against a guy like John Horgan is going to have to be tough."
In his victory speech, Wilkinson made it clear he would continue to lead the Liberals as a free enterprise party, emphasizing values like fiscal responsibility.
“We are the party that does not spend our children's money,” he said in his victory speech.
But he also talked about the need to refresh the party with some of the more progressive ideas pushed by some of the other leadership candidates.
"The challenge that is put at our feet today is to say, 'take those Liberal values, build out this party," he said. "Let's listen to Todd Stone and Michael Lee and blow open the doors and windows and broaden our appeal."
Wilkinson said his first job will be ensuring Liberal candidate Ben Stewart wins in an upcoming byelection in Kelowna West, vacated by former Liberal leader Christy Clark, whose resignation as leader and MLA prompted the leadership contest.
Wilkinson said his next task would be fighting against the proportional representation referendum planned by the Green Party-backed NDP government.
In his platform, Wilkinson said, if his party can win pack power, he would abolish the small business tax on family businesses, provide incentives to increase the supply of purpose-built rental housing, and enact legislation that would force municipalities to speed up the process for approving housing development permits.
Wilkinson is a Rhodes scholar, with degrees in law and medicine, has served as MLA for Vancouver-Quilchena since 2013, and was s minister of advanced education and technology, innovation and citizens’ services under the Clark government.
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