ANDREW WILKINSON

LEADER, BC LIBERAL PARTY

NEW The current leader of the BC Liberal Party has a bad hand to play. The public hates his party, and every time he tries to launch an attack on the NDP over casinos, ICBC or almost anything, critics sneer and say, “Who are you to talk? You created this mess.” But Wilkinson, a west-side former doctor, former lawyer and former Rhodes Scholar, is staying calm and holding it together. That’s no small accomplishment for a party that is famous for fracturing at times into its component parts of rural conservatives and more urban liberals. He has managed to bring the party up in the polls to near NDP levels, in spite of the challenges.