By Bill Phillips
For The Free Press
The BC Liberals have followed the ‘old’ adage by electing Kevin Falcon as their new leader. Falcon, for those who have forgotten, is a throwback to the Gordon Campbell Liberals. If you really want to go back, he was also involved with the Socreds back in the 1980s. He was first elected MLA in 2001 and after losing a leadership bid to Christy Clark in 2011, chose not to run in 2013.
It was a very close leadership race between Falcon and Clark in 2011 and, worried about a party split down the middle, Clark named him deputy premier and finance minister. Falcon held on for a couple of years and then bailed.
It was interesting this time around that some Falcon supporters were claiming he resoundingly secured the leadership. He did get 47 per cent of the vote on the first ballot, but it took four more ballots for him to get the final three per cent to put him over the top.
The leadership wasn’t a slam dunk for Falcon.
The issue, as with all new leaders (just ask Erin O’Toole or Andrew Sheer) is to get those in the party who didn’t vote for you to support you once you are leader. Time will tell whether the BC Liberals will coalesce under Falcon.
It’s interesting that the party went with Falcon when the one thing that became very apparent under Andrew Wilkinson’s leadership was that the party needed renewal. It needed some new blood and to appeal to younger voters. Falcon, at 59 years old, isn’t exactly young, but, as he’s younger than me, definitely not over the hill.
However, party renewal and change doesn’t come with the age of the leader, it comes with the policies. The challenge for the BC Liberals is to capture the hearts of Lower Mainland voters. Regrettably, for those of us in the rest of the province, that is where the election is won or lost.
With the exception of a few seats, the BC Liberals pretty much have the Interior locked up. They need to win back seats in the Lower Mainland if they hope to form government. I believe they believe Falcon, who held the seat of Surrey-Cloverdale, is the guy who can do that.
I’ve said it before and I still maintain that Ellis Ross would be a better leader. But, to the Lower Mainland voters, he’s an outsider. He’s one of those dreaded ‘rural’ MLAs.
The NDP figured it out last election … they don’t need to win the hearts, and votes, of too many of us in the 250. The BC Liberals know that too, that’s why they chose Falcon.
The battle is in the Lower Mainland and, until we change our voting system, that won’t change.
-Bill Phillips is a 30-year veteran of journalism. He grew up in Fernie and began his career at The Free Press in the 1980s.