B.C. Liberals reflect on loss

LEADERSHIP CANDIDATES TALK REBUILD AT DEBATE

Six of the candidates running to lead British Columbia’s Liberals laid out their ideas to rebuild the party Sunday in a debate that dwelled at times on what went wrong in last spring’s election.

The field of candidates includes three members of Christy Clark’s pre-election cabinet and two of them did some soul-searching on why the party lost seats and was eventually dumped from power in a confidence vote after 16 years in office.

Andrew Wilkinson said the party spent too much time talking about its wider economic success and didn’t listen to voters who were feeling the pinch.

“We were preaching at people from 30,000 feet. Telling them about credit ratings, telling them about our debt-to-GDP ratio,” said the one-time attorney general. “It meant nothing in their living rooms. The NDP were in their living rooms offering them a cheaper way of life.”

The province’s minority NDP government will struggle to keeps its election promises to make life more affordable but there is an opportunity for the Liberals to capitalize on issues like the high cost of housing, he added.

“People are living with two income families from pay cheque to pay cheque. We’ve got to understand that and provide a better solution right here in the Lower Mainland.”

Dianne Watts wasn’t in Clark’s cabinet, but she reiterated Wilkinson’s argument, telling the party it needs to change.

“We lost that election because we stopped listening,” said Watts, a former Surrey mayor who quit the House of Commons seat she held for the Conservative party to seek the leadership.

Former transportation minister Todd Stone said he launched his campaign in rapidly growing Surrey to acknowledge the quality of life issues of many voters in the Lower Mainland.

“In this last election we didn’t get it all right. We didn’t speak the language that resonated with enough folks in the Lower Mainland and their issues of affordability and housing, child care and transportation.”

Former finance minister Mike de Jong has bore the brunt of much of the criticism since the election, facing arguments that his tight-fisted control of the province’s purse strings meant programs aimed at easing financial pressures for people never made it off the drawing board. But de Jong was unapologetic. “I have heard the criticism, that tightwad de Jong,” he said. “I may be the only finance minister in living history, now former finance minister, whose criticism is rooted in the proposition that I was too careful with the taxpayers’ dollars.”