HASTY EXIT STOKES FEAR
Liberals fear a repeat of what happened following 2017 election, Clark departure
Andrew Wilkinson did not take questions Monday as he announced his pending departure from the B.C. Liberal leadership.
Neither did he make even a passing comment on the party's dismal showing in the provincial election.
“Leading the B.C. Liberals has been a great honour for me,” said Wilkinson, who presided over the worst showing by the Liberals in seven elections and 25 years.
“But now it's time for me to make room for someone else to take over this role,” he continued in a backhand acknowledgment of the view within the party that he had to go.
But when? The next part of Wilkinson's brief statement — he spoke for less than two minutes — gave pause to a number of Liberals.
Wilkinson said he has “asked the party president to work with the party executive to immediately determine the timeline for a leadership selection process to determine my successor as leader.”
He pledged to “step down as leader as soon as the new leader is selected.”
That word “immediately” caught Liberals off guard because the last thing they want is a leadership race anytime soon.
Others were taken aback at Wilkinson's apparent intention to remain as leader until a fullblown replacement is selected.
Liberals fear a repeat of what happened following the 2017 election.
Christy Clark resigned the leadership and her seat in the legislature almost immediately after John Horgan took the oath of office as her successor.
Her hasty departure threw the party into a rush-job leadership race while it was still picking itself up off the floor after being relegated to the opposition benches.
The timing made it hard for any of the newcomers to the B.C. Liberal caucus to prove themselves before the leadership race was underway.
The result was a lacklustre campaign that pitted several cabinet veterans and one newbie MLA against a lone outsider, Dianne Watts, the former mayor of Surrey.
Watts entered the race with a reputation for appealing across party lines. But her campaign had its ups and downs. Her communication skills were rusty, and at times she seemed poorly briefed.
Still, she led the count for the first four ballots, suggesting many Liberals saw the need to make a clean break with the previous government.
But Watts lost to Wilkinson on the fifth and final ballot, as the “ins” ganged up on the candidate of the “outs.”
Departing premier Clark's unwillingness to face even one day sitting across from the victorious New Democrats in the legislature also saw her resign her Kelowna seat.
The riding was then recaptured by Ben Stewart. He was the former B.C. Liberal MLA who had given it up to create a vacancy for Clark after she lost her own seat in the 2013 election.
Stewart's return to the legislature in a byelection deprived the Liberals of a vacancy that could have been used if an outsider had won the leadership.
So, in light of what happened the last time — coupled with the ongoing pandemic — B.C. Liberals are hoping to put off a full-blown leadership race for a couple of years.
The delay would give the party time to develop internal candidates and attract outsiders as well.
At the same time, they would prefer that Wilkinson hang on to his seat so it could be available for an outsider. But in order to put off the leadership contest until, say, 2022, the party would replace him with an interim leader.
Wilkinson, seemingly oblivious to all this, suggested the road ahead was rife with opportunity.
“Today we begin the challenging and exciting process of rebuilding the party,” he said. “And we do so with a very strong base of elected members in the legislature.”
But Saturday's election results tell a different story. Barring an unlikely reversal in the count of ballots by mail, the B.C. Liberals have lost several of their strongest members, and failed to elect promising newcomers.
Some of their weakest MLAs did manage to get elected, reducing the effective ranks to 15 veterans and five, perhaps promising, newcomers.
Among internal candidates to replace Wilkinson on an interim basis, the most acceptable choices are probably veteran MLAs Stephanie Cadieux or Shirley Bond, with Mike de Jong backing them up as house leader.
MLAs Michael Lee and Todd Stone may well chose to seek the leadership again. Ellis Ross, re-elected in his Skeena riding, is a strong possibility. Other candidates could include Jas Johal, who was defeated for re-election, and former cabinet minister Kevin Falcon, now in private business.
B.C. Liberals are hoping to put off a full-blown leadership race for a couple of years.
Watts discouraged speculation Monday that she might be interested in taking a second run at the leadership. “Been there, done that,” she told CBC's Stephen Quinn on the Early Edition. “I'm very happy with my life right now.”
Wilkinson's enthusiasm for renewal notwithstanding, the prospects ahead are anything but inviting.
Much closer to the mark was Johal's verdict on the 2020 election results.
“B.C. voters finished what they started in 2017,” he said on the weekend. “The B.C. Liberals had three years to renew and we didn't. Now change has been inflicted on us. Today is the first day of real renewal.”
The struggle to renew the party will take years.
Given how badly the Liberals have performed on that score to date, it's an open question whether they can get it done by the next election in 2024.