B.C. Liberals are about to get a fifth candidate in their leadership race with the outsider credentials some have deemed necessary for the party to win a fourth term in 2013.
Christy Clark, a prominent talk show host on CKNW Radio, has scheduled a pair of announcements on Wednesday that seem to suggest she is running to become Liberal leader and B.C’s second female premier after Rita Johnston.
The former deputy premier said on Facebook Monday she “will be making an announcement” on her future on Wednesday morning on CKNW Radio where she has been host of an afternoon radio show since 2007.
Ms. Clark, 45, has been off the air since she announced Nov. 26 that she was taking time off the airwaves to decide whether to enter the race.
Shortly after her radio hit Wednesday, she is to make an in-person appearance in the downtown core.
Veteran political scientist Norman Ruff said Ms. Clark will have an edge over the four other candidates now in the race – all former cabinet ministers who quit their posts to focus on the contest that ends with a party vote on Feb.26.
“She isn’t associated in any way with any decisions made by the Campbell government in the last six years, especially the way in which harmonized sales tax was brought in.”
But the professor emeritus with the University of Victoria said that detachment brings certain vulnerabilities such as the sense that she has been out of the political trenches for a spell.
Critics, he said, may also target her for being an opportunist rushing back into politics because the top job in B.C. politics is now open.
Two of the current candidates, former education minister George Abbott and health minister Kevin Falcon, have said Ms. Clark must commit to seeking a seat in the legislature as part of a win-or-lose return to public service if she is going to enter the race.
There are two other candidates in the race: former attorney general Mike de Jong and skills development minister Moira Stilwell.
Ms. Clark would be the first cabinet outsider in the race.
For some time, Liberals were hoping former finance minister Carole Taylor or Surrey mayor Dianne Watts, both immensely popular, would come into the race.
Both were seen as untainted by the HST, which arguably sped the end of the political career of Mr. Campbell.
However, both ruled out running.
Ms. Clark, who has strong ties to the federal Liberals, will also face challenges casting herself as a candidate with appeal to the federal Conservatives who are a key part of the B.C. Liberal constituency whose base also includes federal Liberals.
Her key rival on that point could be Mr. Falcon, who is seen as more strongly tied to the Conservative wing of the Liberal coalition.
Ms. Clark was first elected to the B.C. legislature in 1996.
In 2001, she was campaign co chair for the Liberals during the election that saw the party win 77 of 79 seats in the legislature. Her other portfolios in government were children and family development.
In 2004, she announced she was leaving politics to spend more time with her then three-year-old son. She did not seek re-election in the 2005 campaign that saw her party win a second term.
Aside from a failed 2005 bid to become Vancouver mayor, she has stayed on the political sidelines, working as host of The Christy Clark Show since 2007.
