B.C. Liberal leader wins seat in legislature

The leader of the British Columbia Liberals says he will use his new seat in the legislature to look the NDP government leaders “straight in their eyes and ask tough questions.”

Kevin Falcon won the Vancouver-Quilchena byelection in a landslide Saturday with 6,200 votes — more than double the 2,590 ballots of his nearest challenger, NDP candidate Jeanette Ashe, according to preliminary results.

The win was expected in the Liberal stronghold, which has been represented by two previous party leaders, Andrew Wilkinson and Gordon Campbell. “Tonight we got a wonderful message from voters of Vancouver-Quilchena, that said it is time for the end of empty rhetoric, it is time for a government that gets results,” Falcon told a crowd of supporters at the party’s headquarters in downtown Vancouver.

The former cabinet minister has not had a voice in the legislature since he won the party’s leadership race in February. He fills the seat left vacant by Wilkinson, who won the riding in 2020 but resigned to make way for Falcon to sit in the legislature.

Falcon, 59, returns to politics after leaving a decade ago to spend more time with his young family and work in the private sector with a Vancouver investment and property development firm.