Falcon wins B.C. Liberal leadership race

Kevin Falcon is the new leader of the B.C. Liberal Party.

The former B.C. cabinet minister (health and transportation) beat out six other candidates for the position formerly held by Andrew Wilkinson who resigned in October 2020, a few days after the party was reduced to 28 seats in the legislature, down from the previous 41 in losing to John Horgan’s NDP.

Results were announced at the party convention at the Sheraton Wall Centre in Vancouver Saturday evening. Falcon won on the fifth ballot with 52 per cent of the vote.

Falcon, 59, was chosen after several days on online voting with around 43,000 party members eligible to vote.

Other candidates were legislature members Michael Lee, Ellis Ross and Renee Merrifield; business leaders Gavin Dew, Val Litwin and Stan Sipos; and Falcon, former MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale.

Ellis Ross finished second with almost 34 per cent of the vote and Michael Lee was third, with about 14 per cent. Val Litwin, Gavin Dew, Renee Merrifield and Stan Sipos were dropped from the field after four ballots.

The party added more than 20,000 new members during the leadership race.

Shuswap MLA Greg Kyllo was among the people who endorsed Falcon.

Falcon doesn’t have a seat in the legislature but it is expected former leader Andrew Wilkinson will resign from his seat in the riding of Vancouver-Quilchena, allowing for a by-election.

A last-minute petition was filed this week by long-time party member Vikram Bajwa in the B.C. Supreme Court to delay the release of Saturday’s results for 15 days, but a judge rejected the legal bid just hours before the Liberals were scheduled to announce a winner.