Stone, Wilkinson, Watt front-runners for top Liberal job.
Ex-transportation minister also has the strong backing of his wife, young family
The brutal, bare-knuckle blood sport known as B.C. politics is not exactly a family-friendly activity — especially for politicians who still have a brood of young kids at home.
I’ve known more than a few highly skilled politicians who have cut short their leadership ambitions because of objections from a long-suffering spouse.
Todd Stone doesn’t have that problem. He’s the father of three girls, but his wife may be the smartest — and toughest — political mind in their home.
It’s a running joke in the Liberal party that if there’s anyone more ambitious for power in B.C. than Todd Stone, it might be Chantelle Stone, a Kamloops marketing professional.
“I’m forever grateful she’s never decided to run against me,” the former transportation minister told me in an interview shortly after he jumped into the B.C. Liberal leadership race. “She’s a political animal in her own right.”
They met, of course, during a Liberal election campaign when they were both party workers. They got married 15 years ago and have three daughters, ages seven to 13, who are just as enthusiastic for their dad’s political career as their parents.
But the fierce backing of his wife and kids is just one reason Stone must be counted among the favourites to win the Liberal leadership race and eventually seize the premier’s office, too.
“He wants it bad,” one key Liberal insider told me. “He’s already surprising people in this race. He’s working flat out.”
Stone is the latest candidate in the race to replace Christy Clark, who resigned in July after the NDP-Green alliance seized power in a historic non-confidence vote in the legislature. A new Liberal leader will be elected on Feb. 3.
The contest is wide open and difficult to handicap, though I’d pick three as the early favourites: Stone, former cabinet minister Andrew Wilkinson and former Surrey mayor Dianne Watts.
Stone is the youngest of the bunch at age 45 and he’s separated himself from the field with a bold promise to refuse to accept any taxpayers’ money to fund Liberal party operations.
The $28-million taxpayer-financed “allowance” for B.C. political parties was revealed last month by Premier John Horgan, breaking an election promise in the process.
“If I win the leadership, the B.C. Liberal party will not accept a single penny of taxpayers’ money — period,” Stone said.
No other leadership candidate has matched the commitment. And for good reason.
If the Liberals voluntarily refuse to take taxpayers’ loot, the rival NDP and Green parties will gain a massive advantage as they pocket millions of public dollars.
The NDP-Green government is banning corporate and union donations to political parties, meaning the Liberals would be forced to fund their operations through individual donations only.
“If that’s a challenge for us, so be it,” Stone said. “Political parties should not take public money better spent on health care, education or an economic recovery plan from forest fires.”
This is a great talking point for Stone that will work well on the campaign trail, especially in the B.C. Interior.
But his biggest challenge will be breaking through in critical urban battlegrounds like Surrey, where Stone’s record as Liberal transportation minister will cause him problems.
The Liberals’ deeply unpopular tolls on the Port Mann and Golden Ears bridges sent angry voters flocking to the NDP and Horgan, who promised to scrap the tolls (which he did).
Then there was Stone’s bungled referendum on a doomed Metro Vancouver transit tax. And he was the government’s point man on the plan to bring the Uber ride-for-hire service in B.C., another one that fell flat in Surrey.
No surprise, then, that Stone launched his campaign in Surrey last week.
“That’s where we lost votes and where we need to win them back,” he said.
But Watts will have something to say about that.
Surrey is Watts’s power base, but the former mayor and Conservative MP has had a bad start to her leadership campaign.
She was nervous and poorly briefed for a recent “leadership showcase” event put on by the Liberal party brass — something ex-leader Clark clearly heard about.
“I’m told the B.C. Liberal leadership forum went well — probably better for some than for others. Such is political life,” Clark wrote on Facebook in a post widely assumed to be pointed at Watts.
Watts will have to perform better at a Sunday leadership debate in Surrey, where she will be challenged to upstage rivals Stone and Wilkinson, the other early front-runner.
As for the rest of the field — Liberal MLAs Mike de Jong, Sam Sullivan, Michael Lee and Terrace businesswoman Lucy Sager — there could always be a surprise breakthrough.
But Stone, Watts and Wilkinson are ones to watch closely.
“I’m forever grateful she’s never decided to run against me.” — TODD STONE ON HIS POLITICALLY SAVVY WIFE CHANTELLE