All six B.C. Liberal leadership contestants had to sign a written undertaking at the start of the race that holds them to three commitments.
They have to pledge their support for the leader, no matter who wins.
They have to campaign for the party in the next election.
And they can’t make or permit their supporters to make disparaging personal remarks concerning other contestants.
After Tuesday night’s final debate, it’s going to take some time for some of them to get over each other — and themselves — before they can convince anyone they’re all ready to pull together.
A lot of latent Liberal ill will spilled out on live TV Tuesday night at the Vancouver debate. Fifteen minutes into the event, it was clear that pitching policy questions to the fractious half-dozen only gets you so far. It was when they were allowed to grill each other that revealing insights came to light.
Former cabinet minister Andrew Wilkinson started the slugfest portion of the evening when he was invited to ask any other candidate a question. As usual, former Surrey mayor Dianne Watts was the target of opportunity. She quit her Conservative MP seat to enter the race as a high-profile outsider who was quick to rap all the caucus members in the race for losing the May election.
The field resents it and has been punching back ever since.
Wilkinson pointedly noted that the rest of the field will be in the legislature on Feb. 13 (meaning she won’t). He said “many of us have noticed a lack of specificity” in her platform. So he asked her to name five things that needed doing in February.
She gave a generalized outline about connecting with people, but Wilkinson launched on her for not citing the Kelowna West byelection, fighting the proportional representation referendum, or other priorities.
They yelled over each other for a while then sat down.
A few moments later Liberal House Leader Mike de Jong was invited to query someone. He too picked Watts.
Her platform calls for ending Crown corporation payments to government, but he said that would cost government $2.2 billion in liquor and lottery dividends. Would she cut services or raise taxes to make it up?
Watts said she was referring to ICBC and B.C. Hydro payments, but de Jong zeroed in.
“Your facts are wrong. More importantly, the information in your platform is wrong.”
Later, after Watt’s vague remarks on the softwood lumber dispute, he jabbed: “I’m going to let you talk. Maybe we’ll get an answer eventually.”
When former transportation minister Todd Stone got his chance he asked — guess who — whether she’d live up to the above undertakings and run for the B.C. Liberals.
She confirmed she would, but the point was he felt it necessary to ask the question in the first place.
The obvious consolation to Watts is that if the others thought she wasn’t a threat, they’d just ignore her.
It wasn’t just her taking the hits.
First-term MLA Michael Lee had a heated exchange with Wilkinson about his criticism of Lee’s campaign. Wilkinson objected to Lee’s criticisms of how the caucus failed. “You’re new on the job. We’ll help you get better.”
Lee responded: “With attitudes like that it’s no wonder we’re still in opposition.”
The race is so heated that even two presumed compadres, Wilkinson and Stone, got some digs in at each other. Wilkinson noted that three Liberal failures in Metro Vancouver — TransLink, taxis and transit — were all Stone’s files.
Stone retorted that he seemed to remember Wilkinson being at cabinet meetings where decisions were made.
The last debate, in Kelowna on Dec. 2, highlighted some animosity.
“We lost the election because you guys stopped listening,” Watts snapped then at Wilkinson.
“Saying you’re going to listen doesn’t always work,” Wilkinson barked back. “I’ve heard that 400 times. Now you’re going to have to tell us what you really think.”
Tuesday night it escalated at times into outright hostility.
B.C. Liberals need to think about scheduling a private encounter group with team counselling after the results are announced Feb. 3 to smooth out all the hurt feelings and grudges that have developed over the course of the race.
