Kevin Falcon chosen as new leader of BC Liberals

Kevin Falcon, who served as Finance Minister and Deputy Premier in previous BC Liberal governments, has been chosen as the party’s new leader.

It took five rounds of voting for Falcon to beat six other candidates in the leadership race. In the fifth round, Falcon garnered 52.19 per cent of votes from the party, while Skeena MLA Ellis Ross picked up 33.65 per cent and Vancouver-Langara MLA Michael Lee received 14.4 per cent.

Falcon served as MLA in Surrey from 2001 to 2013. He has also served as Minister of Health and Minister of Transportation. The 59-year-old left politics a decade ago to spend more time with his family and work in the private sector.

Speaking to party members after his leadership win, he said this is an unprecedented time.

“Trust in politics and politicians has never been lower,” he said.

“Some people feel polarized, some are apathetic and so many more just disillusioned with the entire political process. There is a desire like I’ve never seen before for candor, for competence, and for leadership.”

Shortly after Falcon’s declaration as the new BC Liberal leader, Premier John Horgan extended his congratulations on social media.

“We won’t always agree on the right approach, but I look forward to finding ways to work together on behalf of British Columbians,” Horgan posted on Twitter.

Congratulations @KevinFalcon on becoming the new BC Liberal leader. We won't always agree on the right approach, but I look forward to finding ways to work together on behalf of all British Columbians.

— John Horgan (@jjhorgan) February 6, 2022

Falcon pledged voice political disagreements “without making it personal.”

“I will support the NDP when they make decisions that are good for British Columbia. I’ve done so in the past. But as I’ve watched them govern over the last almost five years, I’ve concluded that their fundamental weakness is not that they’re bad people, because I don’t believe they are. And it’s not that they don’t mean well, because I believe that they do. It’s just that they fundamentally don’t know how to get big things done in the province of British Columbia.”

NDP will portray Falcon as ‘yesterday’s man,’ says political pundit

Falcon’s leadership win comes as no surprise, as he was viewed as the frontrunner by several political pundits.

“He had such a powerful organization built up when he got into the race,” said Hamish Telford, an associate professor of political science at the University of the Fraser Valley. “He had the fundraising advantage. I just think it was too difficult for anyone else to overcome the very substantial advantage he had the beginning of the campaign.”

Telford says Falcon’s big challenge until the next B.C. election will be to rebuild the party.

“He’s going to have to try and recruit candidates. He’s going to have to try and build bridges back to the urban areas where they’ve lost support, while maintaining … that substantial base of support in the interior and the north of the province.”

This was Falcon’s second bid to become party leader. He narrowly lost in the 2011 contest to Christy Clark. Telford believes Falcon was the “secret favourite choice” of the governing BC NDP in this Liberal leadership race

“I think the NDP will enjoy trying to portray him as ‘yesterday’s man,’ attaching him to the Christy Clark and Gordon Campbell governments. It’s hard for the Liberals to claim that they’re now a party of change and renewal, and that’s helpful to the NDP because in the next election, they’re going to be a two-term government.

“If John Horgan is still the leader, then he will have been in office for quite some time and that’s when people start to think about perhaps having a change election. But if it doesn’t look like the BC Liberals have changed at least a leadership level that perhaps evens the playing field, as far as the NDP is concerned.”

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Falcon, speaking to diversity among the BC Liberal party, pledged Saturday evening to recruit candidates from a broad range of backgrounds.

“I want British Columbians of all races, sexualities, genders, cultures, religions, and all economic backgrounds know that they can join us as proud BC Liberals.”

The other candidates in this latest leadership race were political strategist Gavin Dew, former BC Chamber of Commerce boss Val Litwin, Kelowna-Mission MLA Renee Merrifield, and Cielo Properties president Stan Sipos.

Earlier today, a judge rejected a bid by a party member to delay the release of the leadership race results for 15 days over concerns about the Liberals’ recent audit of new members it signed up during the campaign.

With files from Raynaldo Suarez and The Canadian Press