WHO'S IN CHARGE HERE?

Bond says she's leader of the Liberals, but Wilkinson has yet to resign

B.C. Liberal Shirley Bond opened her first media briefing of the year Thursday by assuring reporters that she was, as the title says, the leader of the Opposition.

“Make no mistake about that, that is my job,” said Bond, who was chosen Nov. 23 by a vote of the caucus of B.C. Liberal MLAs.

Her clarification was prompted by a posting on social media earlier in the day. “B.C. Liberals say Andrew Wilkinson has NOT officially stepped down as party leader,” Global TV reporter Richard Zussman wrote on his Twitter account, adding “Shirley Bond is the leader in the legislature.”

Bond reinforced that point doubly in her media conference, both at the outset and again near the end.

“Andrew Wilkinson is focusing on his role as an MLA, he has no responsibility, no stipend, nothing like that related to the B.C. Liberal party, Bond said. “I am the leader of the official Opposition.”

As such, she collects the salary top-up that comes with the job. The leader of the Opposition is paid $55,512 in addition to the basic MLA $111,024.19 compensation, on par with cabinet ministers and the Speaker.

Confirmation of the non-changing of the guard at Liberal party headquarters came from senior director Rachael Segal.

“The current leader has not officially stepped down as leader of the party,” she wrote in an email. “Our party constitution stipulates that a one-year timeline is triggered if/when a leader decides to formally step down.”

The Liberals have faced the dual leader conundrum before, with one elected MLA serving as leader of the Opposition while the outgoing leader continues to hold down the party post until a convention chooses a replacement.

The transition is more awkward this time because of Wilkinson's near-disappearance from the public arena within hours of the polls closing on Oct. 24.

He has yet to do any media interviews since the election. Far from offering a mea culpa for leading the Liberals to their worst result in seven elections over 25 years, he wrote on his Facebook page that “I can confidently say that I did my best for our team and for British Columbia.”

In holding off his formal resignation as leader, he is allowing the party to put off the start of the one-year time frame for leadership change that is written into its constitution.

Bond, for her part, says “we certainly expect a letter of resignation at some point in the next few weeks.”

Segal, the senior director, says “the party's leadership election organizing committee will be determining the timeline for leadership.”

The seven-member committee was appointed this week under co-chairs Roxanne Helme and Colin Hansen.

Roxanne Helme, a Victoria lawyer, ran for the Liberals in Oak Bay-Gordon Head last fall, losing to New Democrat Murray Rankin.

Colin Hansen is a former cabinet minister who retired in 2013. Back then, he presided over an earlier exercise in party renewal, looking at the perennial question of whether the Liberals should change their name. His advice, supported by party members, was that it should not do so.

Hansen and Helme are joined on the leadership organizing committee by Jackie Tegart, now in her third term as MLA for Fraser-Nicola and by Prince Rupert lawyer Don Silversides, currently the party's acting president.

Other members are Derek Lew from Vancouver, Sara Sidhu from Port Moody, and Cameron Stolz of Prince George.

“The committee has been tasked with determining the timeline for the election, establishing the rules that will guide the race, and implementing the process by which members will elect the leader,” a party news release says.

“The election of a new leader is an integral part of the renewal and rebuilding process that the B.C. Liberal Party and its members are currently engaged in,” said Lindsay Cote, recently named as the party's interim director to replace the departed Emile Scheffel.

Still to come is a promised “independent and thorough debrief of the 2020 election campaign.” Based on the comments I have been hearing from some Liberals, they might have to print it on asbestos.

There is a lot of work still to be done by the once-dominant party that is picking itself up off the floor after four years of missed opportunities followed by a well-earned thrashing from the electorate.

With the economy staggered and the pandemic far from over, the public is focused on more pressing matters.

As Bond herself noted, “British Columbians this morning didn't wake up and worry about whether there was a constitutional issue with who is the leader of the B.C. Liberal party.”

True enough. But the leader of the Opposition usually toils in the shadows, unless the government has put itself on the road to ruin.

The electorate tends to discover the leader of the Opposition during the election campaign, and not always to good effect — witness Adrian Dix in 2013 and Wilkinson in 2020.

B.C.'s next election is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024, under the relevant provision in the Constitution Act. Granted it could come sooner, given Premier John Horgan's “flexible” attitude toward election dates written into law. Still, safe to say that the Liberals are in no particular rush to complete the transition.

There is a lot of work still to be done by the once-dominant party that is picking itself up off the floor.