The temptation for B.C. Liberal leadership hopefuls is to emphasize all the party’s shortcomings so as to highlight the need for a fresh face and a new direction.
But there’s a limit to criticizing the former government, given that most of the candidates to date were members of it. You can only go so far in citing errors and fall downs when you were sitting in cabinet or caucus when most of them took place.
There’s also a limit to how much emphasis they can put on how and why the dynasty crumbled and the shame the party is enduring in being in opposition. After all, the Liberals won the May election. They got two more seats than the NDP, and 1,500 more votes. They just didn’t win big enough. It was only in the post-election negotiations with the three-member Green caucus that they lost power.
So in the first few days, the candidates are caught in a twilight zone. They have some objections to previous decisions, but not terribly strong ones, because most took part in making them. And they can’t push too hard on how and why the Liberals lost the election, because actually, they didn’t.
Some early notes on some candidates’ positioning cruises:
• Former finance minister Mike de Jong’s budgets always protected the bottom line. But he told the Times Colonist this week that he advocated for a welfare-rate hike.
“My argument did not carry the day.”
The 10-year freeze on welfare rates contributed to the impression people were getting left behind and the Liberals didn’t particularly care.
De Jong said he thought B.C. was in a position to afford an increase. But the decision was made to leave the rate as is.
The party promised a cut to MSP rates instead. He said even the most ardent Liberals thought the welfare-rate freeze was the wrong call and “drew certain conclusions.”
The Liberals recanted in the June throne speech and promised a $100-a-month increase, matching the NDP promise. It was too late by then. The government fell and the NDP brought in the increase. The leftover question is: Who quashed the welfare-rate hike?
• Former transportation minister Todd Stone pitched the most potentially expensive promise so far, even though he’s not in the race yet. Stone says if he were leader, the Liberals would not accept the public subsidy that would go to all parties under the campaign-finance bill the NDP introduced this month. That would reverse the standard situation of the Liberals banking far more money than the NDP. After years of suspicion about their corporate fundraising, it would also reverse the scene to where they could condemn NDP fundraising, rather than the other way around. It would also cost the party up to $12 million over the next four years, if all public money were refused, and put them about $24 million behind the NDP.
• Liberal MLA Sam Sullivan pitched a number of rapid-fire ideas during his campaign launch, focusing on an “urban innovation agenda” tailored to address the fact the Liberals lost crucial seats in Metro Vancouver. He said cities have to start creating housing, not preventing it. He also sketched out a “modified sales tax” that he said would have all the “advantages” of the harmonized sales tax, plus breaks for low-income earners. That will send chills down the spines of people who remember the HST debacle from years gone by.
• Rookie Liberal MLA Michael Lee managed an impressive head count at his launch in Vancouver on Tuesday. The corporate lawyer and community leader who represents Vancouver-Langara drew more than 200 people to an art gallery for his speech.
• Former cabinet minister and former party president Andrew Wilkinson addressed any concerns about his upper-class demeanour with a joke off the top. The doctor-turned-lawyer said caucus colleague Michelle Stilwell was on his team to coach him on being more “relatable.”
• Former minister Mike Bernier from Peace River South had a Toronto Raptor-like “We the North” moment, recruiting his Peace River North neighbour Dan Davies to introduce him. His event was in downtown Vancouver, but that was understandable, given the hundreds of delegates in town for the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention.
