British Columbia Liberal leadership candidate Christy Clark, centre, votes in favour of a motion to change to a weighted voting system during the B.C. Liberal Party Convention in Vancouver, B.C., on Feb. 12, 2011.
The race to win the B.C. Liberal party leadership now comes down to one magic number: 4,251.
Party delegates voted on the weekend to change the way they will pick their next leader on Feb. 26. Instead of a one-member, one-vote decision, ballots will be tallied on geographic lines, with each of the province's 85 constituencies worth 100 points. The first of the six candidates to capture more than half of those points will become British Columbia's 35th premier.
The spotlight will be in Victoria on Monday, when the legislature resumes for a brief session. There will be a perfunctory throne speech and budget early in the week, but the main show will be outside the debating chambers, with the Liberal candidates lurking the corridors with ready sound bites.
The session won't last past Thursday: With the new regional voting system in place, the B.C. Liberal candidates are eager to get back to the campaign, courting the party's 95,000 or so members across the province. (The opposition New Democrats are amenable to skipping out early, too; they have their own leadership contest under way.)
The Liberals' new system mimics the way MLAs are elected in B.C. The 5,782 party members in the riding of Surrey-Newton will all be allowed to vote, but their choices will be given the same value as the party's 201 members in Kootenay West. It means a lot of travel for the candidates between now and voting day, because securing the urban vote isn't enough under these rules.
"We saw this as an opportunity like we've not had in a decade to really have the party welcome all the regions of the province," said Kootenay East MLA Bill Bennett, a key proponent of the new system who had warned the party would fracture if the status quo was preserved.
It was a change all six candidates endorsed, but none needed it so much as rural candidate George Abbott. Mr. Abbott also gained ground thanks to a second amendment at the convention, which requires Liberal voters to make at least two choices on their preferential ballot. The change was opposed by high-profile supporters of Christy Clark, the perceived front-runner in the race.
The party convention on the weekend included a polite and scripted leadership debate that offered some clues about how the last two weeks of the campaign will unfold.
Ms. Clark, who does not have a seat in the legislature, remains the top target. Both Mr. Abbott and Kevin Falcon took aim at her by questioning her commitment to the party if she does not win the leadership.
"To the members of this party who stick around year in and year out … that does matter to them - they want to see a commitment from a candidate who wants to be leader and premier of the province," Mr. Falcon told reporters, after raising the issue obliquely during the debate.
Ms. Clark will not say if she will seek a seat in the legislature regardless of the outcome: She is on leave from her job as a radio talk-show host at CKNW.
For Ms. Clark's challengers, it has become a race to be the compromise candidate best positioned to defeat her if she hits a ceiling below 4,251.
Mr. Falcon portrayed himself in the debate as a unity candidate who will stick with the party come hell or high water. He made a show of visiting all of the candidates' hospitality events after the party convention on the weekend.
Mr. Abbott aimed for a similar tone, although he defended his sharper criticisms of Ms. Clark's policies. "There are points of disagreement [and]disagreement demands debate in a democratic party," he told delegates. "Then there is commitment: As leadership candidates, we must make commitments to this party, its ideals and its success for years to come."
The B.C. Liberals chose their outgoing leader, Premier Gordon Campbell, in 1993 with a one-member, one-vote system that hasn't been updated until now.
Justine Hunter